American Robin
The familiar lawn bird whose upright pauses, orange breast, and liquid dawn song reward a much closer look.
Chihuahua, Mexico: places and wildlife
Browse the published Explore collection for Chihuahua, Mexico. Open a discovery for its field guide, practical details, and background.
Wild Turkey
Missouri’s restored woodland giant scratches for mast by day, flies to a high tree roost at dusk, and turns spring clearings into a careful performance of gobble, strut, fan, and low drumming.
Canada Goose
The black-necked goose behind migrating V formations, urban grazers, family processions, and loud seasonal skies.
Mallard
A widespread dabbling duck whose glossy drake is obvious—and whose variable females reward more careful identification.
Bald Eagle
A fish-eating sea eagle whose recovery turned a once-imperiled national emblem back into a familiar sight over major waters.
Coyote
A slender, intelligent canid equally capable of living in prairie, desert, farm country, forest edge, and major cities.
Fox Squirrel
A hefty tree squirrel of farms, parks, and open oak country, often warmer-colored and more deliberate than the eastern gray.
Striped Skunk
A mostly nocturnal digger that advertises powerful chemical defense with bold black-and-white fur and patient warnings.
American Beaver
A broad-tailed rodent that fells trees, stores branches, builds dams, and creates habitat used by entire freshwater communities.
Bobcat
Missouri’s statewide wild cat often appears first as a nearly straight track line through mud, then as long hind legs, cheek ruffs, and a short tail slipping between brush and clearing.
North American Bullfrog
Missouri’s largest frog broadcasts a deep jug-o-rum from permanent water, where one missing pair of back folds separates it from the smaller Green Frog.
Ornate Box Turtle
Kansas’s state reptile crosses prairie with a yellow-starred shell and a durable mental map—one reason moving it to “better habitat” can do lasting harm.
Barred Tiger Salamander
A boldly marked prairie amphibian that spends most of its life hidden beneath Kansas soil.
Channel Catfish
Kansas’s state fish navigates opaque water with eight barbels and taste receptors across its skin, but the fastest identification begins behind it—with a deeply forked tail.
Black-tailed Prairie Dog
A talkative burrowing rodent whose clipped lawns and tunnel systems reorganize an entire patch of prairie.
Burrowing Owl
A small, long-legged owl stands in daylight beside a prairie-dog mound, using another mammal’s excavation as nest, refuge, and lookout.
Northern Flicker
A large spotted woodpecker hunts ants on Kansas lawns and prairie edges, then flashes a white rump and yellow—or sometimes reddish—flight feathers when disturbed.
Black-tailed Jackrabbit
A Western Kansas hare becomes a pair of black-tipped ears, a still body in a shallow form, and finally a flashing black upper tail carried through long open-country bounds.
American Badger
Kansas’s broadest weasel reads the prairie from below, opening prey burrows with long foreclaws and leaving fans of soil that may outlast the animal’s brief nocturnal appearance.
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.
Texas Horned Lizard
The familiar “horny toad” is a specialized ant-eating lizard whose camouflage, road use, and need for open ground make casual sightings increasingly memorable.
Texas Madrone
Smooth red-orange bark peels from twisting evergreen trunks in West Texas mountain canyons, linking the Trans-Pecos to a wider Mexican highland flora.
Mountain Plover
Look first for sandy plover with a white forehead and thin black forecrown in breeding plumage, then confirm it in shortgrass prairie, prairie-dog colonies, and sparsely vegetated fields. Those two clues make Mountain Plover much easier to identify responsibly in Colorado.
Colorado Hairstreak
Look first for purple wings with broad dark margins and orange spots near the hindwing tails, then confirm it in gambel oak woodland and scrub in colorado and the four corners region. Those two clues make Colorado Hairstreak much easier to identify responsibly in Colorado.
Golden Eagle
Utah’s state bird of prey is a powerful open-country eagle most often discovered as a dark, steady shape circling over cliffs and basins.
Greater Roadrunner
New Mexico’s state bird is a large ground-dwelling cuckoo: a fast, territorial hunter that rudders with its tail, flashes white wing patches, warms dark skin in the morning sun, and sounds nothing like a cartoon beep.
Two-needle Piñon Pine
New Mexico’s state tree is a small, slow-growing pine that builds vast woodlands with juniper, feeds birds, mammals, and people with unusually large seeds, and records drought visibly in its crown.
New Mexico Whiptail
New Mexico’s state reptile is an all-female species that reproduces without males, preserving a successful hybrid genome through cloned daughters.
New Mexico Ridge-nosed Rattlesnake
This small, beautifully marked rattlesnake survives in isolated pine-oak sky islands at New Mexico’s southwestern edge and across the nearby Mexican border.
Sandia Hairstreak
New Mexico’s state butterfly spends most of its life hidden on beargrass, emerging for a short spring flight as a remarkably camouflaged green hairstreak.
Soaptree Yucca
Tall flower stalks and elevated leaf crowns mark a desert yucca whose reproduction depends on specialized moths that deliberately pollinate its flowers.
New Mexico Locust
This small native tree can turn burned mountain slopes pink with pea-like flowers, then stabilize soil through vigorous root sprouting and nitrogen-fixing partnerships.
Cactus Wren
Arizona’s brash desert wren advertises itself from cholla with bold white brows, spotted plumage, and a mechanical chugging song.
Arizona Gray Squirrel
A broad pale-edged tail and warm reddish back distinguish this large squirrel of Arizona’s oak-lined mountain canyons.
Arizona Ridge-nosed Rattlesnake
Arizona’s small mountain rattlesnake favors cool, rocky pine-oak canyons and shows pale facial stripes across an upturned snout.
Two-tailed Swallowtail
Arizona’s enormous yellow state butterfly patrols canyon streams and gardens, flashing black tiger stripes and two tails on each hindwing.
Arizona Giant Skipper
A brief monsoon-season flight reveals this robust agave specialist, whose hidden larvae spend most of their lives inside host plants.
Arizona Sycamore
Mottled white trunks illuminate rocky canyon streams where this broad-crowned southwestern tree provides shade, cavities, and riparian structure.
Arizona Cypress
Blue-gray scale foliage, fibrous bark, and persistent round cones identify this fire-adapted conifer of Arizona’s rocky mountain canyons.
Mountain Bluebird
Idaho’s state bird flashes an almost unbroken blue across open mountain and sage country, often hovering briefly before dropping onto ground prey.