House Sparrow
Chunky introduced sparrow closely tied to buildings, livestock areas, sidewalks, and busy human settlement
Florida, United States: places and wildlife — page 2
Browse the published Explore collection for Florida, United States. Open a discovery for its field guide, practical details, and background.
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
American Shad
This ocean-going herring returns to fresh water each spring, reconnecting the Connecticut River with the Atlantic in one powerful migration.
North Atlantic Right Whale
A broad back, rough head callosities, and V-shaped blow identify one of Earth’s rarest whales when it gathers seasonally off Massachusetts.
American Black Bear
America’s most widespread bear is often easier to recognize by tracks, clawed logs, and overturned stones than by a direct sighting.
Florida Manatee
The Florida manatee moves between rivers, estuaries, springs, and seagrass beds, surfacing quietly in waters shared with boats.
Common Bottlenose Dolphin
A curved dorsal fin, robust gray body, and short bottle-shaped beak mark a dolphin that finds prey through both vision and echolocation.
Osprey
Dark eye stripe, kinked long wings, and reversible outer toes identify the fish specialist nesting beside Oregon waters.
Largemouth Bass
A jaw extending behind the eye, deep body, and dark side stripe separate largemouth bass from their smaller-mouthed relatives.
Bluegill
A deep compressed body, dark ear flap, and blue-green cheek identify a widespread sunfish that rewards close looking.
Weakfish
A slender silver body, oblique spots, yellowish fins, and drumming muscles identify this estuarine member of the drum family.
Red Drum
Copper-bronze sides, blunt head, and one or more black spots near the tail identify a drum moving from marsh creek to open coast.
Monarch Butterfly
Orange wings with heavy black veins identify a migrant whose caterpillars can eat only milkweeds and whose journey outlasts any one summer adult.
Common Green Darner
Large size, bright green thorax, and a dark bull’s-eye on the forehead help identify a darner capable of continental movement.
Black Swallowtail
Paired rows of yellow spots and an orange-centered hindwing eye distinguish a butterfly whose striped caterpillar feeds on carrots’ wild relatives.
Zebra Longwing
Long narrow black wings crossed by pale yellow bands identify Florida’s state butterfly, a pollen-feeder with unusually long adult life.
Large-flowered Trillium
Three broad leaves, three white petals, and a flower held above a single whorl mark Ohio’s woodland wildflower.
Common Milkweed
Opposite broad leaves, milky sap, round pink flower clusters, and warty pods identify a plant central to monarch development.
American Holly
Spiny evergreen leaves, pale bark, and red winter fruit identify a native holly once central to Delaware wreath making.
Northern Red Oak
Bristle-tipped leaf lobes, shallow-striped bark, and broad acorns distinguish New Jersey’s state tree from rounded-lobed white oaks.
Tulip Tree
Four-lobed leaves with a notched flat tip and green-orange tulip-like flowers identify one of eastern North America’s tallest hardwoods.
Red Maple
Red buds, flowers, leaf stalks, and paired winged seeds recur across the year on Rhode Island’s adaptable state tree.
Longleaf Pine
Needles up to well over a foot long, huge cones, and a tufted grass-stage seedling identify the pine behind one of America’s richest savannas.
Loblolly Pine
Arkansas’s state tree is a fast-growing southern pine whose long three-needle bundles, broad bark plates, and working-forest history shape the Coastal Plain.
Northern Mockingbird
Arkansas’s state bird patrols open neighborhood territories, flashing white wings and stitching other birds’ sounds into long improvised songs.
Brown Pelican
Louisiana’s state bird patrols bays in low files, then folds into spectacular headfirst dives for schooling fish near the surface.
Roseate Spoonbill
A pink wader sweeps its spoon-tipped bill through shallow Louisiana water by touch, turning every side-to-side arc into a search below the glare.
American Alligator
Louisiana’s largest native reptile engineers wetland habitat, survives seasonal cold through dens, and demands generous distance wherever fresh water meets land.
Red Swamp Crawfish
Louisiana’s familiar crawfish is both a wetland burrower and a major farmed food species, thriving in seasonal shallow water and rice-crawfish systems.
Gulf Menhaden
A hand-sized silver fish links plankton to pelicans, dolphins, drum, and one of America’s largest fisheries, making a surface bait ball both feeding event and management question.
Alligator Gar
North America’s largest gar is an air-breathing floodplain fish whose armored body and broad snout conceal a life history paced by rare, well-timed inundation.
Bald Cypress
Louisiana’s state tree is a deciduous conifer built for floodplain life, capable of forming ancient forests where buttressed trunks rise from seasonal water.
Water Tupelo
A water-swollen trunk rises from Louisiana’s deepest forested wetlands into a crown of broad leaves and blue-black fruit—decidedly not the neighboring bald cypress.
Southern Live Oak
Southern Live Oak turns a well-drained Louisiana ridge into horizontal architecture, carrying evergreen leaves, acorns, ferns, lichens, and moss across limbs broader than many buildings.
Southern Magnolia
Glossy evergreen leaves, fragrant white flowers, red-seeded cones, and deep cultural familiarity make this both Mississippi’s state tree and state flower.
Great Lakes Piping Plover
A palm-sized shorebird nests almost invisibly on Great Lakes beaches, where one footprint, loose dog, or sudden water rise can matter.
Carolina Wren
A warm-brown wren with a white eyebrow lives close to cover across South Carolina and serves as the state bird.
Carolina Wolf Spider
North America’s largest wolf spider patrols open ground after dark and is South Carolina’s official state spider.
Eastern Tiger Swallowtail
This large striped butterfly, South Carolina’s state butterfly, moves between tree canopies, flowers, puddles, and host plants.
Carolina Mantid
South Carolina’s state insect is a gray, green, or brown ambush predator of gardens, old fields, and woodland edges.
Sabal Palmetto
The cabbage palmetto’s flexible trunk and broad fans define coastal streets, maritime forest edges, and the state flag.
The Dalí Museum
The largest collection of Dalí’s work outside Spain moves from jewel-like early paintings to monumental canvases inside a waterfront landmark.
Pérez Art Museum Miami
Art of the Americas, the Caribbean, and the African diaspora fills shaded terraces beneath Herzog & de Meuron’s hanging gardens.
Vizcaya Museum and Gardens
James Deering’s 1916 villa joins European rooms, subtropical gardens, mangroves, service buildings, and a stone barge at the water’s edge.
The Ringling
A sprawling Sarasota campus combines a European art museum, circus collections, Mable Ringling’s gardens, and the Venetian Gothic Ca’ d’Zan.
Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex
Space Shuttle Atlantis, a Saturn V, launch-era control rooms, astronaut stories, and bus access to restricted NASA landscapes fill a full-day complex.