American Shad
This ocean-going herring returns to fresh water each spring, reconnecting the Connecticut River with the Atlantic in one powerful migration.
South Carolina, United States: places and wildlife — page 2
Browse the published Explore collection for South Carolina, United States. Open a discovery for its field guide, practical details, and background.
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.
Say’s Firefly
A dark firefly with pale margins and an angular shield pattern, Say’s firefly turns summer dusk into species-specific communication.
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.
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.
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.
American Alligator
Louisiana’s largest native reptile engineers wetland habitat, survives seasonal cold through dens, and demands generous distance wherever fresh water meets land.
Swamp Rabbit
Louisiana’s largest cottontail lives close to water, swims readily, and hides in dense floodplain cover where most observers see only tracks or a bounding tail.
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.
Cahaba Lily
Broad white flowers rise from rocky shoals in fast, sunlit water, with Alabama’s Cahaba River supporting the best-known and largest accessible display.
Georgia Plume
A tall shrub or small tree bears upright clusters of four-petaled white flowers on sandy ridges and sandstone outcrops.
South Carolina State Museum
Art, cultural history, natural history, science, a planetarium, and an observatory occupy the vast former Columbia Mills building beside the Congaree River.
Columbia Museum of Art
European painting, Asian art, decorative arts, modern work, and changing exhibitions meet in compact galleries opening onto Boyd Plaza.
International African American Museum
Nine galleries, a family-history center, and the African Ancestors Memorial Garden interpret African origins, Atlantic crossings, slavery, resistance, Gullah Geechee culture, and worldwide influence.
The Charleston Museum
Natural-history specimens, textiles, silver, weaponry, archaeological material, and Lowcountry objects trace Charleston from Indigenous homelands through slavery, war, commerce, and tourism.
Gibbes Museum of Art
Portrait miniatures, Charleston Renaissance work, modern Southern art, and changing exhibitions occupy a Beaux-Arts building with studios visible to visitors.
Patriots Point Naval & Maritime Museum
USS Yorktown, USS Laffey, aircraft, flight and engine spaces, a Vietnam support-base exhibit, and the Medal of Honor Museum make naval scale physically legible.
H. L. Hunley Museum
The recovered Confederate submarine H. L. Hunley rests in a conservation tank while artifacts, facial reconstructions, and research explain its 1864 attack and the deaths of all three crews.
Greenville County Museum of Art
American art with particular strength in Southern work includes an important Andrew Wyeth collection, Jasper Johns, and a substantial group by South Carolina-born William H. Johnson.
Upcountry History Museum
Permanent and changing galleries connect Cherokee homelands, settlement, slavery, textile mills, civil rights, military service, and the region’s transformation into an international manufacturing center.
Florence County Museum
Regional art, archaeology, Pee Dee history, and the Wright Collection of Southern Art frame Florence-born William H. Johnson within a broader material landscape.
Coastal Discovery Museum
Honey Horn’s 68 acres hold live oaks, salt-marsh views, historic structures, gardens, horses, and exhibits on Lowcountry ecology and culture.