Nine-banded Armadillo
An armored nocturnal digger is pushing north through Kansas creek corridors, leaving cone-shaped feeding holes before its long snout and banded back appear.
Mexico: places and wildlife — page 2
Browse the published Explore collection for Mexico. Open a discovery for its field guide, practical details, and background.
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.
Golden-cheeked Warbler
The only bird whose entire breeding range lies within Texas weaves nests from strips of mature Ashe juniper bark in wooded Hill Country canyons.
Black-capped Vireo
A small migratory songbird depends on a shifting mosaic of low shrubs and openings maintained by disturbance, browsing, and careful land management.
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.
Devils River Minnow
A small borderland fish survives in clear spring-fed reaches where groundwater, desert rivers, barriers, and two countries meet.
Lacey Oak
A small Hill Country oak with blue-gray leaves grows from limestone and canyon soils, carrying a range that crosses Texas into northeastern Mexico.
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.
California Gull
Utah’s state bird is an inland gull whose vast Great Salt Lake gatherings connect nesting islands, farm fields, wetlands, and migration routes.
American White Pelican
One of North America’s largest birds nests on remote Great Salt Lake islands and travels astonishing distances to feed in freshwater wetlands.
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.
Abert’s Towhee
A secretive lower-desert towhee scratches beneath mesquite, revealing a black face, warm undertail, and brief accelerating 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.
Gila Topminnow
This tiny livebearing fish persists in warm desert springs and cienegas where introduced mosquitofish, drought, and altered flows threaten recovery.
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.
Saguaro
The Sonoran Desert’s towering column stores rain in pleated stems, shelters cavity nesters, and feeds wildlife with crown flowers and red fruit.
Nichol’s Turk’s Head Cactus
A low blue-green barrel armed with heavy curved spines hides among southern Arizona limestone and blooms pink after warm-season rain.
Blue Palo Verde
Arizona’s state tree sheds tiny leaves during drought, photosynthesizes through blue-green bark, and erupts in pollinator-rich yellow spring bloom.
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.
Desert Bighorn Sheep
Nevada’s state mammal turns steep desert rock into refuge, using gripping hooves while tracking sparse forage, shade, and water across isolated ranges.
Singleleaf Pinyon
Nevada’s characteristic pinyon often carries one needle per bundle, building broad woodlands whose seeds connect people, birds, rodents, and fire.
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.
Common Loon
Minnesota’s state bird is a superb underwater hunter whose haunting calls carry across northern lakes—but whose nest can fail after one careless wake.
Golden-winged Warbler
This crisp gray-and-gold migrant thrives not in deep forest or open field, but in the shifting edge between them—a habitat easy to erase by accident.
Baltimore oriole
Maryland’s orange-and-black state bird whistles from leafy edges and suspends a woven pouch nest near a branch tip.
Atlantic blue crab
Paddle-shaped rear legs, blue claws, and a life tied to brackish Chesapeake water distinguish Maryland’s state crustacean.