LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — Local animal celebrity Mojave Max set a new burrow emergence record — and one lucky student at Elaine Wynn Elementary School predicted it all.
As part of the Springs Preserve’s Mojave Max contest, fourth-grader Joana says she “had to figure out what day and what time Mojave Max was gonna come out,” picking 2 p.m. on May 8 as Mojave Max’s burrow emergence date.
WATCH | Mojave Max visits winning class of Springs Preserve contest
Just nine minutes shy of Joana’s prediction, Mojave Max finally appeared at 2:09 p.m. on May 8, winning the competition for Joana and her classroom.
For her winning guess, the Mojave Max team gifted Joana a year-long family membership to the Springs Preserve, a digital camera, a laptop computer, and an "America the Beautiful" year-long pass to national parks and federal recreation areas.
The Mojave Max team also treated Joana's class to a pizza party, and awarded them with T-shirts, two tickets each to visit the Springs Preserve, medals, a trophy for their school — and of course, a visit from Mojave Max himself.
Katrina Smith, a senior zoologist at the Springs Preserve, said Mojave Max’s tardiness did not make it possible to bring the winning class to the Springs Preserve to visit him, saying instead that they opted to “[bring] the party to the classroom.”
Mojave Max’s “late emergence this year was definitely weather-related,” Smith said. “Our cooler, overnight temperatures kind of kept his super deep burrow colder than it normally would be…It’s definitely much cooler in there than it normally is this time of year.”
If you're curious what Mojave Max's record-breaking late emergence from his burrow might tell us about summer, Channel 13 reporter Guy Tannenbaum took that question to the experts and shares his findings here:
