Sunken Gardens
A compact Depression-era garden uses grade change, formal beds, ponds, and an annually redesigned planting scheme to create surprising depth within one city block.
Places and wildlife — page 6
Browse Explore’s field guide to destinations, wildlife, art, and the natural world. Open a discovery for practical details and background.
Arbor Lodge State Historical Park and Arboretum
J. Sterling Morton’s estate connects the origins of Arbor Day with a historic mansion, mature specimen trees, orchard landscapes, and the complexities of tree planting on the Great Plains.
Maxwell Arboretum
Mature trees, shrubs, perennial beds, prairie plantings, and trial collections form a free outdoor classroom on the University of Nebraska’s East Campus.
Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo and Aquarium
Large indoor biomes, aquarium habitats, desert and nocturnal complexes, and expansive outdoor exhibits make this a full-day institution, not a quick city zoo.
Lee G. Simmons Wildlife Safari Park
A four-mile drive threads through bison, elk, deer, wetland, and prairie habitat before walking areas shift the encounter to wolves, eagles, and conservation work.
Lincoln Children’s Zoo
A compact accredited zoo uses manageable walking distances, animal encounters, play, and keeper interpretation to build careful observation in younger visitors.
Riverside Discovery Center
Western Nebraska’s compact community zoo pairs a five-member chimpanzee troop with rescued regional wildlife, carnivores, primates, hoofstock, and repeatable close observation.
Sandhill Crane
About a million Sandhill Cranes use Nebraska’s central Platte as a spring refueling corridor, commuting between shallow river roosts and working fields in waves of rolling calls.
Interior Least Tern
A Nebraska river can erase and rebuild this tiny tern’s nursery: two or three camouflaged eggs lie on nearly bare sand while adults hover for fish above the channel.
Plains Topminnow
A small surface-feeding fish centered on Nebraska’s Sandhills turns clear spring streams into habitat found almost nowhere else at comparable scale.
American Crow
Large all-black bird with a heavy bill, familiar caw, and remarkably observant social life
Great Horned Owl
Massive owl with ear tufts, a deep paired hoot, and formidable dusk hunting ability
Barn Owl
Pale heart-faced owl that floats low over fields while listening for prey beneath grass
Common Grackle
Long-tailed blackbird with a pale eye, bronze gloss, and a rusty mechanical voice
American Goldfinch
Small bouncing finch with black wings, a musical flight call, and dramatic seasonal plumage
House Sparrow
Chunky introduced sparrow closely tied to buildings, livestock areas, sidewalks, and busy human settlement
European Starling
Glossy introduced bird with a pointed bill, triangular wings, and astonishingly coordinated winter flocks
Muskrat
Stocky aquatic rodent with a vertically flattened tail, compact lodge, and busy wetland feeding routes
American Mink
Dark, low-slung mustelid moving quickly along water edges while hunting on land and underwater
Thirteen-lined Ground Squirrel
Slender ground squirrel striped with alternating pale lines and spots, often upright beside prairie burrows
Prairie Vole
Small blunt-faced vole hidden within woven runways beneath dense grass, seldom crossing open ground
Bullsnake
Large blotched snake that hisses loudly, imitates a rattlesnake convincingly, but remains nonvenomous
Plains Garter Snake
Striped garter snake with a bold orange-yellow back stripe, especially at home near prairie wetlands
Prairie Mole Cricket
North America’s largest cricket sings from a carefully shaped prairie burrow rather than from a grass stem.
Regal Fritillary
A Regal Fritillary turns a Kansas prairie remnant into a complete life-cycle map: orange forewings above, black spotted hindwings behind, nectar flowers for adults, and violets waiting below for spring larvae.
Plains Lubber Grasshopper
The Plains Lubber is the heavy, short-winged answer to the idea that every grasshopper should fly: an outsized prairie walker patterned in green, brown, pink, black, and pale dots.
Great Plains Giant Tiger Beetle
A flightless tiger beetle patrols Kansas after dark like a small black hunting machine built almost entirely from legs and jaws.
Southern Plains Bumble Bee
This long-faced native bumble bee connects deep prairie flowers to an underground social colony that lasts only one growing season.
Common Sunflower
Kansas’s familiar sunflower is a branching wild annual, not simply a smaller version of the single-headed crop plant.
Little Bluestem
Little bluestem turns an ordinary-looking summer bunchgrass into one of the prairie’s most luminous copper winter plants.
Purple Poppy Mallow
Wine-colored flowers seem scattered directly across the ground because this prairie mallow grows outward instead of upward.
Compass Plant
A compass plant can spend decades building a taproot before raising its rough flower stalk above nearly every neighboring prairie plant.
Leadplant
Leadplant is a prairie shrub disguised as a wildflower: silver-haired leaflets and purple one-petaled blooms sit above woody stems and roots that reach deep into dry Kansas ground.
Eastern Cottonwood
Cottonwoods trace water across the plains, their restless leaves revealing river corridors from miles away.
Bur Oak
Thick bark and an enormous root system let bur oak stand where prairie fire, drought, and winter test less durable trees.
Common Hackberry
A familiar Kansas creek-and-street tree becomes unmistakable at arm’s length: corky bark ridges, sandpapery three-veined leaves with crooked bases, and dark winter fruit crowded with birds.
Western Soapberry
Clusters of amber soapberries glow like marbles after the leaves fall, making this modest plains tree easiest to recognize in winter.
Peachleaf Willow
Peachleaf willow follows prairie watercourses, growing taller and straighter than the shrubby willows many people expect.
Salt Creek Tiger Beetle
One of North America’s rarest insects survives beside Lincoln where an ancient inland sea still salts a few muddy stream edges.
Platte River Caddisfly
A caddisfly found in only a handful of Nebraska channels completes part of its aquatic life while its wetland is seasonally dry.
Ottoe Skipper
The Ottoe skipper turns a thumbnail-sized butterfly into a demanding test of whether a prairie still functions as habitat rather than scenery.
Sandy Tiger Beetle
Against pale Sandhills sand, the sandy tiger beetle reverses the usual camouflage equation: white becomes the color of concealment.
Nebraska Conehead
A loud summer katydid reveals itself by a buzz longer than a second, repeated about every two seconds, before its black-bottomed head cone comes into view.
Blowout Penstemon
Blowout penstemon survives where moving sand defeats most plants, sending vanilla-scented flowers from the exposed face of a dune.
Sand Milkweed
Sand milkweed hugs loose prairie sand with thick woolly leaves, looking almost sculpted by the drought and wind around it.
Silky Prairie Clover
Silky prairie clover softens the Sandhills at ankle height, pairing pale hairs with pink flower spikes and roots built for shifting soil.
Soapweed Yucca
Soapweed gives western Nebraska an evergreen silhouette and stages one of the prairie’s most intimate partnerships with a tiny moth.
Giant Goldenrod
Nebraska’s floral emblem is a late-summer colony, not one giant flower: arching branches carry hundreds of tiny golden heads above a smooth bluish stem alive with visiting insects.