American Bison
A living prairie force whose grazing, wallows, and movement reshape the Flint Hills around it.
Missouri, United States: places and wildlife — page 3
Browse the published Explore collection for Missouri, United States. Open a discovery for its field guide, practical details, and background.
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.
Greater Prairie-Chicken
Before sunrise, a Flint Hills ridge begins to boom: barred males stamp, bow, raise feathered pinnae, and turn orange neck sacs into low notes that carry across the grass.
Ring-necked Pheasant
At a Kansas field edge, the obvious copper male and the nearly erased brown female are two versions of the same introduced bird—both betrayed by an extraordinarily long pointed tail.
American Kestrel
North America’s smallest falcon hunts Kansas roadsides from wires, poles, and wind-held hovering flight.
Scissor-tailed Flycatcher
A pale summer flycatcher turns Kansas utility lines into launchpads for pink-flashed aerial loops.
Dickcissel
This grassland bunting broadcasts its own name from Kansas weeds, fences, and bluestem each summer.
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.
Red-winged Blackbird
One Cheyenne Bottoms cattail can hold two identification lessons: a glossy male turning hidden red shoulders into a territorial flag, and a heavily streaked female moving low enough to be mistaken for a sparrow.
Killdeer
A shorebird without a shore runs across Kansas gravel, flashes two breast bands, and sometimes performs an apparently broken wing to move danger away from eggs hidden in plain sight.
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.
Plains Pocket Gopher
The Plains Pocket Gopher is usually a landscape rather than a sighting: fresh fan-shaped soil, a plugged side entrance, and a loose procession of mounds mapping a sealed tunnel below.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Eastern Redcedar
Eastern redcedar can be both winter shelter and ecological warning: a useful native tree that transforms grassland when fire disappears.