Periodical Cicadas
Missouri’s periodical cicadas are not an annual attraction: the forest-wide chorus arrives only when a mapped 13- or 17-year brood emerges.
Pennsylvania, United States: places and wildlife — page 2
Browse the published Explore collection for Pennsylvania, United States. Open a discovery for its field guide, practical details, and background.
American Shad
This ocean-going herring returns to fresh water each spring, reconnecting the Connecticut River with the Atlantic in one powerful migration.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Indiana Bat
A small social bat winters in a few cold caves, migrates to summer forest roosts, and carries the name of the state where science first described it.
Ohio Buckeye
Ohio’s namesake tree is a small-to-medium woodland understory species recognized by five leaflets, upright yellow-green flower clusters, and mahogany seeds marked with a pale eye.
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.
Lake Sturgeon
An armor-plated fish can live for more than a century, migrating from Lake Winnebago into rocky rivers for a brief, spectacular spring spawn.
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.
Walleye
Minnesota’s state fish is a low-light predator whose famous eyes, seasonal movements, and lake-by-lake management make it more interesting than a dinner plate.
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.
Baltimore checkerspot
Black wings checked with cream and orange identify a wet-meadow butterfly whose official status contrasts with its rarity in Maryland.
Baltimore oriole
Maryland’s orange-and-black state bird whistles from leafy edges and suspends a woven pouch nest near a branch tip.
Black-eyed Susan
Rough-haired stems and golden rays around a raised brown center make Maryland’s state flower a familiar open-ground wildflower.
White oak
Maryland’s state tree supports insects and wildlife; rounded leaf lobes and pale bark reward a slower look in mature woodland.
Philadelphia Museum of Art
Beyond its famous staircase, Philadelphia’s landmark art museum rewards close looking across global collections and a building worth reading in its own right.
Barnes Foundation
Barnes’s densely arranged ensembles invite you to connect color, line, ironwork, and objects across artists and eras.
Fallingwater
Frank Lloyd Wright’s cantilevered house reaches over Bear Run, joining modern architecture to stone, forest, and falling water.
Longwood Gardens
Fountains, conservatories, woodlands, and meadow plantings make Longwood a designed landscape that changes dramatically by season and time of day.
Independence Hall
The Assembly Room witnessed both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution—two revolutions in government, separated by eleven contentious years.
Gettysburg National Military Park
The battlefield's ridges, fields, roads, and memorials make the three-day 1863 battle legible as geography as well as national memory.
Eastern State Penitentiary Historic Site
Walk a radial-plan nineteenth-century prison, then confront what its reform experiment reveals about incarceration and justice today.
Ohiopyle State Park
The Youghiogheny River cuts a dramatic gorge through Ohiopyle, with easy falls views, strenuous trails, and renowned whitewater in one park.
Carnegie Museum of Natural History
Dinosaurs in Their Time puts Carnegie's fossil discoveries into recreated ancient ecosystems, not just rows of impressive skeletons.
The Andy Warhol Museum
Warhol's screenprints, films, archives, and changing exhibitions trace how a commercial illustrator remade the language of modern images.