Hawaiian Monk Seal
Hawaiian monk seals forage across deep reefs but spend roughly a third of their time ashore, where undisturbed rest is essential.
United States: places and wildlife — page 8
Browse the published Explore collection for United States. Open a discovery for its field guide, practical details, and background.
ʻŌpeʻapeʻa
This solitary, tree-roosting bat is Hawaiʻi’s only living native terrestrial mammal and an insect hunter most often detected after sunset.
Old New-Gate Prison & Copper Mine
Underground mine tunnels, ruined prison walls, and archaeology reveal a site where extraction, punishment, labor, and preservation repeatedly changed meaning.
Fort Trumbull State Park
A nineteenth-century coastal fort, riverwalk, visitor center, and harbor outlook explain New London’s strategic position beside the Thames River.
Kamehameha Butterfly
This orange-and-brown butterfly occurs only in Hawaiʻi, where its caterpillars depend primarily on native māmaki and related nettle-family plants.
California Condor
With a wingspan near ten feet, North America’s largest land bird now flies again above California after every surviving wild condor entered captivity.
Fort Griswold Battlefield State Park
Earthworks, a tall monument, museum rooms, and a commanding river view mark the violent 1781 attack on Groton Heights.
Henry Whitfield State Museum
A massive seventeenth-century stone house and modern visitor center examine colonial settlement, architecture, mythmaking, and the Indigenous land beneath the familiar landmark.
Island Scrub-Jay
The Island Scrub-Jay occurs naturally only on Santa Cruz Island, giving it the smallest geographic range of any North American bird species.
Prudence Crandall Museum
The former Canterbury Female Boarding School interprets Black education, organized white opposition, law, violence, and Prudence Crandall’s students as actors in their own history.
Tule Elk
Once reduced to a single tiny herd, tule elk now occupy protected pockets across California grasslands, marsh edges, and oak country.
Delta Smelt
This slender, nearly translucent fish lives only in the upper San Francisco Estuary, where its seasonal movements track fresh water, tides, and salinity.
Roseland Cottage
Pointed gables, patterned interiors, a boxwood parterre, and the nation’s oldest surviving indoor bowling alley preserve elite nineteenth-century summer life.
Giant Sequoia
Giant sequoias grow naturally only in scattered Sierra Nevada groves, building extraordinary volume through thick fire-resistant bark and immense longevity.
Lockwood-Mathews Mansion Museum
An enormous 1860s country house combines Second Empire architecture, technological innovation, elaborate interiors, and the unstable fortunes of two families.
Coast Redwood
Coast redwoods occupy a narrow Pacific fog belt, where immense height, canopy moisture, and vigorous resprouting build forests found nowhere else.
Nathan Hale Homestead
The Hale family house and farmland place Nathan Hale within household labor, Revolutionary politics, siblings, military choices, and the later construction of patriotic memory.
Hammonasset Beach State Park
Beach, boardwalk, campground, marsh, and the Meigs Point Nature Center make Connecticut’s largest shoreline park far more than a swimming stop.
Sleeping Giant State Park
Basalt ridges form a reclining profile above Hamden, with routes ranging from a broad tower path to steep, rocky blue-blazed trails.
Silver Sands State Park
A coastal boardwalk crosses restored dunes and marsh while Charles Island sits offshore, reachable only under narrow and hazardous tidal conditions.
Rocky Neck State Park
A sheltered Sound beach opens into tidal marsh, wooded trails, a historic fieldstone pavilion, camping, and views across the Four Mile River.
Devil’s Hopyard State Park
A stepped waterfall, mysterious potholes, hemlock woods, camping, and rocky trails make a compact park with both geological and folkloric layers.
Wadsworth Falls State Park
Broad Wadsworth Falls, narrower Little Falls, forest roads, streams, and a seasonal swimming area create several distinct park experiences.
Talcott Mountain State Park
A short but steady climb reaches a 1914 hilltop tower, traprock ledges, and broad Farmington Valley views along the Metacomet Ridge.
Dinosaur State Park
More than 750 visible dinosaur tracks remain under a geodesic dome beside trails and an arboretum planted with ancient lineages.
Harkness Memorial State Park
Eolia mansion, pergolas, lawns, gardens, saltwater views, and working shoreline ecology share a former Gilded Age estate.
Kent Falls State Park
A short climb follows a mountain stream through repeated drops while a historic covered bridge and picnic meadow frame the park entrance.
Bluff Point State Park
An 800-acre coastal reserve joins woods, bluff, beach, tidal marsh, mudflat, and eelgrass along a long multi-use loop.
Farmington Canal Heritage Trail
A mostly paved north–south route follows transportation layers from New Haven toward Massachusetts through cities, wetlands, stone cuts, and surviving lock history.
Air Line State Park Trail
A crushed-stone rail trail crosses eastern Connecticut on dramatic fills, cuts, wetlands, and bridges once engineered for a fast New York–Boston route.
Appalachian Trail — Connecticut
Connecticut’s Appalachian Trail follows Housatonic flats, steep ridges, waterfalls, and the state’s high northwest corner through a deceptively demanding section.
New England National Scenic Trail — Connecticut
The blue-blazed Mattabesett and Metacomet routes connect rocky ridges, reservoirs, forests, and towns as Connecticut’s share of a national scenic trail.
Steep Rock Preserve
Trails loop beside the Shepaug River through hemlock forest, old carriage roads, a former railroad tunnel, and the dramatic Steep Rock overlook.
Elizabeth Park Rose Garden
Thousands of roses, curved pergolas, greenhouses, lawns, and specialty gardens form a free public landscape on the Hartford–West Hartford line.
Bartlett Arboretum & Gardens
Ninety-plus acres of specimen trees, native habitats, gardens, trails, and educational spaces make an urban arboretum feel unexpectedly deep.
Connecticut College Arboretum
A native plant collection, pond, meadows, woodland, Caroline Black Garden, and research landscapes connect public walking with college teaching.
Mystic Aquarium
Beluga whales, Steller sea lions, penguins, touch habitats, and conservation interpretation connect charismatic animals with ocean research and rescue.
The Maritime Aquarium at Norwalk
Sharks, seals, rays, jellyfish, turtles, and tidal habitats interpret the life of Long Island Sound from a working Norwalk waterfront.
Connecticut’s Beardsley Zoo
Amur leopards, red pandas, wolves, rainforest habitats, and New England species share a walkable Bridgeport park with a strong conservation focus.
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.
RISD Museum
Ancient objects, textiles, decorative arts, painting, photography, and contemporary work fill linked buildings shaped by a teaching museum’s close-looking mission.
Gray Wolf
Long legs, a broad muzzle, and purposeful travel distinguish a wolf whose family life shapes northern forests and human debate.
Museum of Natural History and Planetarium
Birds, minerals, cultural collections, local ecology, and a compact planetarium make Rhode Island’s only natural-history museum an unusually affordable park stop.
Moose
Long legs, a heavy overhanging muzzle, and an appetite for twigs and aquatic plants make the moose unmistakably built for northern country.
Providence Children’s Museum
Water, construction, motion, stories, and Rhode Island community life become hands-on environments designed for children to test ideas through play.
Newport Art Museum
American art, Newport makers, changing exhibitions, and the shingled Griswold House connect a living art community with the city’s visual history.
Pronghorn
Neither deer nor antelope, the pronghorn pairs extraordinary eyesight and speed with horns that shed their outer sheath.
Audrain Automobile Museum
Focused rotating shows place rare cars, motorcycles, engineering, fashion, and social history inside a compact Bellevue Avenue gallery.