Thirteen-lined Ground Squirrel
Slender ground squirrel striped with alternating pale lines and spots, often upright beside prairie burrows
New Mexico, United States: places and wildlife — page 2
Browse the published Explore collection for New Mexico, United States. Open a discovery for its field guide, practical details, and background.
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
Plains Lubber Grasshopper
The Plains Lubber is the heavy, short-winged answer to the idea that every grasshopper should fly: an outsized prairie walker patterned in green, brown, pink, black, and pale dots.
Great Plains Giant Tiger Beetle
A flightless tiger beetle patrols Kansas after dark like a small black hunting machine built almost entirely from legs and jaws.
Common Sunflower
Kansas’s familiar sunflower is a branching wild annual, not simply a smaller version of the single-headed crop plant.
Purple Poppy Mallow
Wine-colored flowers seem scattered directly across the ground because this prairie mallow grows outward instead of upward.
Western Soapberry
Clusters of amber soapberries glow like marbles after the leaves fall, making this modest plains tree easiest to recognize in winter.
Sand Milkweed
Sand milkweed hugs loose prairie sand with thick woolly leaves, looking almost sculpted by the drought and wind around it.
Soapweed Yucca
Soapweed gives western Nebraska an evergreen silhouette and stages one of the prairie’s most intimate partnerships with a tiny moth.
Ponderosa Pine
Ponderosa pine gives the Pine Ridge a western forest silhouette and reaches the eastern edge of its natural continental range in Nebraska.
Limber Pine
A few native limber pines reach east from the Rockies into Kimball County, forming one of Nebraska’s most surprising tree populations.
Rocky Mountain Juniper
Rocky Mountain juniper threads blue-green columns through Nebraska’s western escarpments, where it can meet and hybridize with eastern redcedar.
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.
Gray Wolf
Long legs, a broad muzzle, and purposeful travel distinguish a wolf whose family life shapes northern forests and human debate.
Pronghorn
Neither deer nor antelope, the pronghorn pairs extraordinary eyesight and speed with horns that shed their outer sheath.
Common Raven
Heavy bill, shaggy throat, and wedge-shaped tail separate the raven from crows as it works cliffs, tundra, forests, and towns.
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.
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.
California Poppy
Silky orange cups, four petals, and finely divided blue-green leaves make California’s state flower recognizable well beyond mass-bloom photographs.
Big Sagebrush
Three-toothed wedge leaves, silvery foliage, and a resinous scent identify a shrub that shelters far more life than its muted color suggests.
Douglas-fir
Three-pointed bracts protruding from each cone scale make Douglas-fir recognizable even when its immense crown is far overhead.
Antelope-horns Milkweed
Curved seed pods suggest antelope horns, while greenish flower balls feed early-season pollinators across dry southern prairie.
Indian Blanket
Oklahoma’s state wildflower brings red-and-yellow color to dry roadsides for months, but its common name should not be treated as a generic Indigenous design license.
Northern Mockingbird
Arkansas’s state bird patrols open neighborhood territories, flashing white wings and stitching other birds’ sounds into long improvised songs.
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.
Brown-capped Rosy-Finch
Look first for warm brown cap, gray face, black forecrown, and pink-washed wings, then confirm it in alpine cliffs and talus above treeline, descending in winter. Those two clues make Brown-capped Rosy-Finch much easier to identify responsibly in Colorado.
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.
Southern Rocky Mountain Boreal Toad
Look first for warty toad with a pale stripe down the back and no cranial crests, then confirm it in high-elevation wetlands, ponds, and willow edges in the southern rockies. Those two clues make Southern Rocky Mountain Boreal Toad much easier to identify responsibly in Colorado.
Colorado Chipmunk
Look first for large chipmunk with dark facial stripes and warm ochre sides, then confirm it in rocky foothills, canyon walls, and open woodland in the central southwest. Those two clues make Colorado Chipmunk 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.
Rocky Mountain Columbine
Look first for blue-violet sepals, white petals, and long backward-pointing spurs, then confirm it in montane and subalpine meadows, open woods, and moist rocky slopes. Those two clues make Rocky Mountain Columbine much easier to identify responsibly in Colorado.
Colorado Blue Spruce
Look first for stiff sharp four-sided needles and gray-brown furrowed bark, then confirm it in cool stream valleys and moist mountain slopes in the central and southern rockies. Those two clues make Colorado Blue Spruce much easier to identify responsibly in Colorado.
Rocky Mountain Bristlecone Pine
Look first for needles in bundles of five dotted with white resin flecks, then confirm it in wind-exposed high-elevation slopes of colorado, new mexico, and arizona. Those two clues make Rocky Mountain Bristlecone Pine much easier to identify responsibly in Colorado.
Sego Lily
Utah’s state flower rises sparsely from dry ground, each cup-shaped bloom carrying a purple eye and a yellow, hairy band that guides pollinators inward.
Utah Juniper
This slow-growing native forms much of Utah’s pinyon-juniper woodland, surviving heat, cold, and lean soils through scale leaves and extensive roots.
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.
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.
Georgia O’Keeffe Museum
Nine intimate galleries trace how Georgia O’Keeffe moved from radical charcoal abstractions to New York architecture, flowers, bones, and the northern New Mexico landscapes she made unmistakably her own.
Chaco Culture National Historical Park
Massive great houses, engineered masonry, ceremonial spaces, roads, and alignments reveal Chaco Canyon as the center of an Ancestral Puebloan world whose descendant communities remain deeply connected to it.
White Sands National Park
Wind reshapes a brilliant gypsum dunefield where dune crests migrate, plants build pedestals to survive burial, pale animals blend into white sand, and ancient footprints preserve a far older landscape.
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.