What good are cactus spines?
Cactus spines didn’t evolve to punish clumsy hikers. Their chief function, as one might expect, is to protect cacti from hungry animals. It doesn’t always work. Javelina devour entire prickly pear pads, spines and all, and thirsty jackrabbits and cottontails nibble carefully between the areoles. Spines may offer little impediment to cactus-consuming bugs and beetles, though flying insects occasionally blunder into them, impaling themselves helplessly on the tips.
