Painted Desert (Arizona) Painted Desert (Arizona) The Painted Desert is a United States desert of badlands in the Four Corners area running from near the east end of Grand Canyon National Park and southeast into Petrified Forest National Park. It is most easily accessed in the north portion of Petrified Forest National Park. The Painted Desert is known for its brilliant and varied colors, that not only include the more common red rock, but even shades of lavender. The Painted Desert was named by an expedition under Francisco Vázquez de Coronado on his 1540 quest to find the Seven Cities of Cibola, which
Desert owl demonstrated that the holotype of "S. butleri" was not actually a member of this species, but was instead most likely an Omani owl (which had been described as a new species, "S. omanensis", in 2013). Because the allocation of "Strix butleri" to the Omani owl left the more widespread species without a name, the authors of the study named it "S. hadorami" after Israeli ornithologist Hadoram Shirihai, and gave it the new common name desert tawny owl (which has been subsequently shortened to desert owl by some authors). Desert owl The desert owl or desert tawny owl ("Strix hadorami"), formerly