Northern Red-bellied Cooter
Massachusetts protects a far-northern, geographically isolated population of this large basking turtle through one of America’s longest headstart programs.
West Virginia, United States: places and wildlife — page 2
Browse the published Explore collection for West Virginia, United States. Open a discovery for its field guide, practical details, and background.
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.
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.
Northern Mockingbird
Arkansas’s state bird patrols open neighborhood territories, flashing white wings and stitching other birds’ sounds into long improvised songs.
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.
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.
West Virginia State Museum
Archaeology, settlement, Civil War statehood, extraction, industry, music, protest, and daily life fill the Culture Center beside the Capitol.
Huntington Museum of Art
American and European art, glass, firearms, folk art, a tropical conservatory, maker studios, and nature trails share an intimate hilltop campus.
Clay Center for the Arts & Sciences
Hands-on science, Avampato art galleries, immersive water exhibits, a planetarium, and performance halls invite different kinds of attention.
Beckley Exhibition Coal Mine
A former drift mine, rail cars, camp buildings, exhibits, and miner-led interpretation connect geology to dangerous labor and company-town life.
West Virginia Mine Wars Museum
Artifacts, photographs, maps, oral histories, and immersive displays interpret strikes, Matewan, Blair Mountain, and their aftermath.
Heritage Farm Museum & Village
Seven museums, historic buildings, craft demonstrations, animals, and outdoor activities turn regional material culture into a full-campus visit.
Museum of American Glass in West Virginia
Pressed, blown, cut, colored, and commercial glass reveals changing technology, design, labor, and regional industry in an unusually concentrated collection.
Green Bank Science Center
Interactive exhibits, scheduled tours, and views of the 485-foot Green Bank Telescope explain how astronomers detect signals too faint for human senses.
Mothman Museum
Newspaper clippings, witness material, props, memorabilia, and local interpretation follow how a red-eyed figure became Point Pleasant’s durable folklore.
West Virginia Independence Hall
Restored interiors, period objects, and statehood exhibits occupy the federal building where wartime conventions and government reshaped Virginia’s western counties.
Harpers Ferry National Historical Park
At the Potomac–Shenandoah confluence, preserved streets and trails connect the federal armory, John Brown’s raid, Civil War, Black education, and Appalachian geography.
Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum
Long wings, wards, grounds, and archives support guided tours of a psychiatric hospital that operated from the Civil War era into the late twentieth century.
West Virginia Penitentiary
Cellblocks, yards, work areas, execution spaces, and interpretation confront the systems and people behind one of America’s most imposing former prisons.
Grave Creek Mound Archaeological Complex
The conical mound, archaeology exhibits, and research center interpret Indigenous engineering, burial practice, nineteenth-century excavation, and preservation.
Cass Scenic Railroad State Park
Company houses, shops, mill traces, museum exhibits, and operating Shay locomotives connect mountain rail engineering to industrial logging and community life.
Matewan Historic District
Brick storefronts, the rail corridor, floodwall, depot landscape, and markers situate the 1920 confrontation within the longer Mine Wars.
New River Gorge National Park and Preserve
Overlooks, trails, historic districts, climbing walls, and one of America’s great whitewater rivers reveal both Appalachian ecology and industrial transformation.
Blackwater Falls State Park
A 57-foot waterfall, canyon overlooks, wooded trails, winter recreation, and dark tannin-stained water make this one of West Virginia’s clearest landscape signatures.
Coopers Rock State Forest
The main overlook, Raven Rock, historic CCC structures, climbing areas, and rock-strewn trails combine broad geology with close forest detail.
Babcock State Park
Glade Creek Grist Mill is the famous image, but more than twenty miles of trails reveal rugged New River Gorge plateau terrain.