And and the royal icon of the American Southwest here in the Sonoran Desert, is the only place on earth where the Saguaro grows home of Saguaro National Park near the Arizona Mexican border.

There are 91,000 protected acres bisected by the city of Tucson.

In this park, the Saguaro is a thirsty monarch, sucking up a Muchas 200 gallons of water during a rare MMA torrential desert rainstorm.

Okay, these royal giants grow slowly but can reach 50 feet in height and rain through a life span of 150 years.

Solid as they appear to be, it is water that makes up most of their weight way are the most recognized cactus in the world.

The Saguaro has become a symbol of the American West Park visitors head out on the Cactus Forest Trail, a desert thoroughfare much used by hikers and bicycles.

Hikers must avoid brushing against the spines of the low growing shove.

Like Choi, a cactus, they bristle with barbed spines, which are painfully difficult to remove.

Once embedded in your flesh.

Many desert plants bristled.

The Gavi water is so scarce that cactuses protect the water they have stored with sharp spines.

The prickly pear.

Without these fines, insects, birds and animals would eat them.

At first glance, this expanse of desert seems lifeless.

Too much sun, too little rain.

But a longer look reveals a profusion of wildlife with constant scarcity of water.

Each creature struggles endlessly to stay alive.

Water is life.

The regal Saguaro provides sweet fruit for hungry creatures and homes to birds such as the Harris Hawk and the L Foul, the smallest owl in existence.

Like all desserts, Saguaro has extreme fluctuations and daily temperatures.

Cloudless skies and unshaded ground make a blast furnace of the daytime, while at night, without cloud cover or moisture to hold the heat, bitter cold takes over.

Some creatures burrow underground or crawl into rock dance to escape the killer son of summer and cold nights of weather.

When summer temperatures soar to over 100 F, scorpions exude a coating of wax to seal in moisture.

An effective barrier against dehydration.

Three only known year round spring is founded King Canyon in the Tucson Mountains.

This reliable source of water is often frequented by the collard hackery.

Ah, harried wild mammal.

They're also known by their Spanish name.

Have Alina.

Yeah, we're not sleeping during the heat of day, these members of the New World pig family are found rooting among beds of prickly pear.

They're social animals, usually traveling and hers, King of cactus and profuse wildlife aren't the parks only attractions?

Red Hills Visitor Center in the Tucson Mountain District offers an insight to the Native American take on a Saguaro cactus.

Signal Hill is well worth the hike here some 1000 years ago, near what is today an inviting picnic area.

Native Americans left hundreds of Petra cliffs, so we have never decipher the meaning of these pictorial records.

We feel certain that the prehistoric people who made them hiked in these forests of the Saguaros and groves of Mesquite, probing the secrets of the desert as we do today.