Atlantic Cod
A chin barbel, pale lateral line, and three dorsal fins identify the cold-water fish that shaped Massachusetts food, trade, and politics.
Massachusetts, United States: places and wildlife — page 2
Browse the published Explore collection for Massachusetts, United States. Open a discovery for its field guide, practical details, and background.
Purple Finch
New Hampshire’s state bird is a stout forest finch whose males look washed in raspberry and whose movements follow shifting seed crops.
Atlantic Puffin
Atlantic puffins returned to historic Maine nesting islands through decades of seabird restoration, social attraction, and careful colony protection.
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.
Moose
Long legs, a heavy overhanging muzzle, and an appetite for twigs and aquatic plants make the moose unmistakably built for northern country.
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.
Humpback Whale
Knobbed head, extraordinarily long flippers, and deeply notched tail flukes identify a whale that migrates between feeding and breeding seas.
Harbor Seal
Round head, spotted coat, and V-shaped nostrils distinguish the true seal most regularly seen around Rhode Island.
Black-capped Chickadee
Black cap, white cheeks, small bib, and a curious approach make this year-round northern songbird a foundational backyard identification.
Ruffed Grouse
Mottled bark-colored plumage, a dark tail band, and the male’s accelerating wing-drumming suit dense young forest better than open lawn.
Hermit Thrush
Spotted breast, plain face, and a reddish tail contrasting with a browner back identify the thrush behind one of Vermont’s clearest woodland songs.
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.
Northern Pike
Duckbill snout, rear-set fins, and pale bean-shaped spots identify the pike waiting almost motionless beside cover.
Weakfish
A slender silver body, oblique spots, yellowish fins, and drumming muscles identify this estuarine member of the drum family.
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.
Say’s Firefly
A dark firefly with pale margins and an angular shield pattern, Say’s firefly turns summer dusk into species-specific communication.
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.
Mountain Laurel
Glossy evergreen leaves and clustered pink-white cups patterned with ten pockets identify Connecticut’s state flower.
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.
Eastern Hemlock
Flat short needles with pale undersides, tiny hanging cones, and drooping twig tips identify Pennsylvania’s state tree.
Red Maple
Red buds, flowers, leaf stalks, and paired winged seeds recur across the year on Rhode Island’s adaptable state tree.
Eastern White Pine
Long flexible needles grouped in fives, slender cones, and layered horizontal branches identify the eastern white pine.
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Ancient sculpture, Japanese prints, American painting, textiles, photography, and contemporary work fill a vast Fenway museum where provenance matters as much as masterpieces.
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
Paintings, sculpture, furniture, textiles, manuscripts, and flowers remain arranged through Isabella Stewart Gardner’s intensely personal vision inside Fenway Court.
Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston
Changing exhibitions, performance, film, and a dramatic harbor cantilever make the ICA a place where new art and a rapidly changing waterfront confront one another.
Museum of Science, Boston
Live demonstrations, engineering challenges, natural history, a planetarium, giant-screen films, and changing exhibitions turn curiosity into a full-day Charles River experience.
Boston Children’s Museum
Construction, bubbles, performance, Japanese culture, climbing, art, and early-childhood spaces turn a waterfront warehouse into an active laboratory for families.
Harvard Art Museums
European, American, Asian, Islamic, and ancient art share a Renzo Piano-renovated building where conservation, teaching, and technical study remain visible.
Harvard Museum of Natural History
The Ware Collection of Glass Flowers, great mammals, dinosaurs, gemstones, and changing science displays transform university collections into unusually close encounters with form.
MIT Museum
Robotics, artificial intelligence, holography, kinetic art, maritime models, and student invention show how experiments become tools, systems, and public consequences.
USS Constitution Museum
Hands-on exhibits, sailor stories, timber construction, combat history, and an active Navy ship explain how USS Constitution worked rather than merely why it became famous.
John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum
Campaign media, White House decisions, civil rights, diplomacy, family life, and an immense archive unfold inside I. M. Pei’s waterfront geometry.
Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum
Live interpreters, meeting-house debate, replica ships, a surviving tea chest, and multimedia storytelling recreate the choices behind the Boston Tea Party.
Peabody Essex Museum
Asian export art, maritime material, Indigenous art, American interiors, fashion, and contemporary installations reveal both the reach and consequences of Salem collecting.
Worcester Art Museum
Roman mosaics, European painting, American art, arms and armor, Asian collections, and a French priory chapter house create surprising depth in central Massachusetts.
MASS MoCA
Immense brick mill buildings hold long-duration installations, performance, music, and changing exhibitions whose scale can be understood only by walking through them.
Clark Art Institute
Renoir, Homer, decorative arts, works on paper, architecture, and wooded trails make the Clark both an intimate collection and a landscape institution.
Norman Rockwell Museum
Original paintings, magazine covers, archives, changing illustration exhibitions, and Rockwell’s relocated studio examine how familiar images were designed and contested.
Springfield Museums
Art, history, natural science, astronomy, Springfield industry, and the Amazing World of Dr. Seuss share one campus built for deliberate cross-connections.
Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art
Original illustration, changing exhibitions, a hands-on art studio, library, and auditorium reveal how books are designed, revised, printed, and read.
New Bedford Whaling Museum
Whale skeletons, ship models, logbooks, scrimshaw, paintings, Indigenous knowledge, and environmental interpretation fill a museum inseparable from New Bedford’s working port.