Son lives on the West side of Albuquerque where the soil is sand mixed with volcanic rock debris .. very fertile despite how it appears! I have found new-to me- critters I don't have on my part of the City as well as the well known ones:

leaf rolling bees: they cut half circles out of bushes (mainly roses) & roll them like a tiny cigarette & I guess lay their eggs in it & the young when hatched eat their way out of the rolled leaf.

mud dauber bees: they make mud nests under the eaves of my son's house

spittle bugs: found on the young prostrate rosemary plants around son's pond.

scorpions, 'child of the earth',centipedes, vinegrones (sp.?)

now ones I don't know the name of yet: small fly/bee-like critters that burrow holes in the sand piles in the partially unlandscaped section of the back yard. They are small & fly in & out of those holes in the sand!

another is a BIG all black bee that looks like a big bumblebee that is found all over the flower beds. Is it a bumblebee?

Can anyone complete my list of named critters in just one seemingly 'barren' back yard?! Oh yes: also blue tailed lizards & bunny rabbits (cottontails)!

I am calling them 'critters' for lack of real knowledge of insect terminology ... sorry!!