CHAPTER VIII 

 ANIMALS OF THE DUNES 



ONATION of animal forms in the Dunes 

 is quite as evident as that of the plants. 

 This is to be expected since the location 

 of the animals is determined in large 

 measure by their food plants or by nest- 

 ing sites that in turn are determined by 

 the plants. Before calling attention to 

 some of the characteristic animals of 

 each zone we may give a striking example of the difference in 

 habitat of the several species of the tiger beetles (Fig. 145). 

 The white tiger (Cicindela lepida) and the copper tiger (C. cupras- 

 cens) are abundant in summer along the wet shore just out 

 of reach of the waves where they are busy feeding on small 

 insects washed up from the lake and on the maggots of common 

 flies that live in larger dead animals that are deposited by the 

 same agency. The white tiger flies back to the higher parts of 

 the fore-dune area and to the cottonwood zone to rear its young; 

 in the former area the openings of its burrows are character- 

 istic though not numerous, in the latter, abundant. Cicindela 

 hirticollis digs its straight, cylindrical, vertical burrows in which 

 the young are found in the moister parts of the fore-dune area. 

 This species is found foraging very commonly in the cottonwood 

 zone, especially on the landward side of the dunes that border 

 ponds or swales. In the transition belt between cottonwood and 

 pine associations occur the crooked holes of the young and the 

 adults of the large tiger, C. formosa generosa. The bronze tiger 

 (C. scutellaris lecontei) is characteristic of the pine association 

 itself where it rears its young, and is found also in the adjacent 

 black oak areas, especially in bare sandy spots. Finally, as one 



