Differentiating Between Cricket, Spider, Scorpion, and Skink Burrows in Dryland Environments, Simpson Desert, Northern Territory, Australia

Stephen T. Hasiotis¹ and Mary C. Bourke^2
1 University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS
² Planetary Science Institute, Tucson, AZ

Identification of animal burrows in dryland environments and soils is important because burrows in geologic deposits document hidden biodiversity and record the effects on animals of such local climate parameters as precipitation, temperature, and solar insolation. The diagnostic characteristics of many modern animal burrow morphologies, however, have not been identified for use in the geologic record, particularly paleosols.

Burrows of sand crickets, scorpions, spiders, and skinks were cast in unconsolidated fluvial and aeolian sediments in the semiarid Simpson Desert, Northern Territory, Australia, to identify the salient features in burrows constructed by different types of burrow architects. Sand cricket burrows have a subvertical shaft that terminates in a chamber nearly perpendicular to the shaft. Several smaller tunnels can arise from the shaft or terminal chamber. Wolf and funnel spider burrows have a nearly vertical shaft that terminates in a subtle, terminal chamber that is slightly wider that the burrow diameter. Scorpion burrows have highly flattened shafts that spiral downward in a regular pattern and terminate in a widened chamber nearly 1.5 times the shaft diameter. Skink burrows have a single opening, leading to a shallow dipping shaft. Escape tunnels originate from the shaft as short, shallow, upward dipping tunnels that switchback on one another to the surface.

Burrow casts demonstrate that vertebrate burrows can be differentiated from invertebrate burrows, and the burrows of invertebrates can be differentiated from each other.

Funding provided to MB and STH by Scholarly Studies Program, Smithsonian Institution and to STH by the University of Kansas—RPSGNF-2301872.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90039©2005 AAPG Calgary, Alberta, June 16-19, 2005