Are These Saguaro Ribs a Playpen, a Jail, or…?

One of the fun things about hiking in the desert is the opportunity to let my imagination run wild. One day, I came across this saguaro that had somehow survived the gouging out of a large segment of its skin, spines, and flesh, so that its ribs were clearly showing. My mind began to wonder what could have caused this to happen and how the resulting cavity might function now.

What caused this damage? I have no idea. If this were snow country, I could imagine a snow shovel swung with abandon, slicing into the side of the saguaro. But we don’t have such a volume of snow here. It looks like a big rock crashed into the side of the saguaro, causing a wave effect along the sides of the hole—but the ribs aren’t broken, and the “waves” are actually the saguaro’s dark-skinned scabs, protecting the rest of its body. (When birds dig into the saguaro to make nests, the resultant scab will remain after the saguaro has died. We call it a saguaro boot.) So, I’m not sure what caused this damage. The ribs prevent easy access for any but the smallest creatures.

However, the resulting hole seems large enough to allow us to peer into the center of the cactus if we could get that close (this hole was a good dozen feet up from the ground, as I recall). In my imagination, it looks like the perfect playpen for juvenile woodpeckers. The rib bars are too closely placed to allow young birds to get out and find trouble while parents are off hunting down lunch.

Alternatively, it could be the local critter community jail, where miscreants could be safely held behind saguaro-rib bars until some sort of restitution had been paid or conditions had been met. Or it could be that the saguaro now benefits from a built-in air duct to allow heat to escape during our increasingly brutal summers.

Those are my thoughts. What do you imagine when you see these saguaro ribs?