Texas Ebony trees (Ebenopsis ebano) is a species of legume native to South Texas. These trees produce large bean pods (see below) that ripen and fall to the ground. They provide food to javelinas (Pecari tajacu) and other wildlife. Using the last five years of iNaturalist javelina sightings, I am examining the relationship between javelinas and staple foods such as prickly pear (Opuntia sp.) and ebony.
The association between javelinas and enboy trees in South Texas is quite strong. Below is a map that shows javelina (black) sightings since January 1, 2017 and Texas ebony trees (green).
As a side story, the first javelinas that I located as part of my multispecies ethnographic research project were at Choke Canyon and it was an ebony tree that led me to the javelinas.
I'm Adam Johnson, an anthropologist teaching at Northwest Vista College while completing my PhD at UTSA after teaching as a lecturer at UNCC for 3 years.
My work engages with the ways in which landscapes mediate multispecies relations. I hope to work with the Cofán, an Indigenous people of the Ecuadorian Amazon and will be visiting in the summer of 2020 to develop a research plan, collaborating with local people in Zábalo.
I have also completed ethnographic research with Drag Queens in North Carolina, science studies research on the ways scientific discourse maintains racial categories and thus inequality, and primate research, studying the ways in which chimpanzees and rhesus macaques construct and make use of space.
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