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Near Badlands National Park, South Dakota; this somewhat rare white prairie dog stands in front of its burrow. While most prairie dogs are brown in color, a few colonies of white (leucistic) prairie dogs live in this area.
Prairie restoration using controlled burning of the prairie grass at the Little Calumet River Prairie Nature Preserve by the IUN Science department.
This beautiful native prairie flower is called Prairie Smoke (Geum triflorum). As you can see, it was named for its feathery flowers which resemble a puff of pink smoke.
Credit: Neil Shook / USFWS (2012)
Also called Marsh Gentian and Seaside Prairie Gentian. Merritt NWR, FL. These are in full bloom now. Native.
An adult male Prairie Rattlesnake (Crotalus viridis) crossing a road at night in Weld County, Colorado, USA.
May Prairie is a 492-acre natural area in Coffee County near Manchester. The most impressive feature at May Prairie is the open grassland community that protrudes into the surrounding oak forest where the oak barrens begin. The open grassland is primarily comprised of a little bluestem community and a tall grass prairie community with an occasional sedge meadow found in wet depressions. A swamp forest forms the headwaters of what once was the "prairie tributary." The tall grass prairie component with big bluestem (Andropogon gerardii), Indian grass (Sorghastrum nutans), switchgrass (Panicum virgatum) and plume grass (Erianthus giganteus) tend to follow the old prairie tributary. The little bluestem community represents the drier end of the prairie gradient and is prevalent throughout the open grassland. In spring, the little bluestem community provides a splendid floral display of orange, blue, and white color as Indian paintbrush, false indigo, and bluets appear in full bloom. In late summer many species of sunflower are common with the rare southern dock (Silphium pinnatifidum) and two species of blazing star (Liatris spicata and L. microcephala) prominently flowering.
May Prairie is one of the State's most floristically diverse natural areas with 25 of its more than 300 plant species that occur here considered rare in Tennessee. It supports disjunct plants known from the Atlantic and Gulf Coastal Plains including the only state location for both the snowy orchid (Platanthera nivea) and the coastal false-asphodel (Tofieldia racemosa). In addition, May Prairie has many species common to the Midwest tall grass prairie that are unusual in the Southeast. May Prairie was discovered during a botany foray in 1947 by Dr. A. J. Sharp and colleagues from the University of Tennessee while stopping for lunch at the Prairie Café. They were told that a prairie could be found behind the restaurant.
Facilities management tree surgeon Matt Leigh of bunker hill watches the prairie just south of Bluff Hall.
SIUE does a prescribed burn of the Prarie every year. 03/13/2012
A well managed prairie complete with native species such as bluestem, indian grass, and black-eyed susan. This prairie has undergone intensive restoration work to remove invasives and is burned regularly. It serves as summer habitat for a population of Eastern Massasauga Rattlesnakes. It's hard to complain about looking for snakes in place like this.
May Prairie is a 492-acre natural area in Coffee County near Manchester. The most impressive feature at May Prairie is the open grassland community that protrudes into the surrounding oak forest where the oak barrens begin. The open grassland is primarily comprised of a little bluestem community and a tall grass prairie community with an occasional sedge meadow found in wet depressions. A swamp forest forms the headwaters of what once was the "prairie tributary." The tall grass prairie component with big bluestem (Andropogon gerardii), Indian grass (Sorghastrum nutans), switchgrass (Panicum virgatum) and plume grass (Erianthus giganteus) tend to follow the old prairie tributary. The little bluestem community represents the drier end of the prairie gradient and is prevalent throughout the open grassland. In spring, the little bluestem community provides a splendid floral display of orange, blue, and white color as Indian paintbrush, false indigo, and bluets appear in full bloom. In late summer many species of sunflower are common with the rare southern dock (Silphium pinnatifidum) and two species of blazing star (Liatris spicata and L. microcephala) prominently flowering.
May Prairie is one of the State's most floristically diverse natural areas with 25 of its more than 300 plant species that occur here considered rare in Tennessee. It supports disjunct plants known from the Atlantic and Gulf Coastal Plains including the only state location for both the snowy orchid (Platanthera nivea) and the coastal false-asphodel (Tofieldia racemosa). In addition, May Prairie has many species common to the Midwest tall grass prairie that are unusual in the Southeast. May Prairie was discovered during a botany foray in 1947 by Dr. A. J. Sharp and colleagues from the University of Tennessee while stopping for lunch at the Prairie Café. They were told that a prairie could be found behind the restaurant.
one of thousands in a prairie dog town in the wild....in South Dakota
They sit by their holes in the sun....if they are intimidated, they will turn tail and head down into their hole (usually after they beat their tails against the ground to warn the others of impending danger) If you walk too closely to them, they make a sort of muffled squeaking noise before they turn around and scurry down their hole in the ground.
Highly social, prairie dogs live in large colonies or "towns" – collections of prairie dog families that can span hundreds of acres. The prairie dog family groups are the most basic units of its society. Members of a family group inhabit the same territory.
Prairie dogs excavate elaborate burrow systems with many entrances marked by low or volcano-shaped mounds. The common black-tailed (C. ludovicianus) and Mexican (C. mexicanus) species live in large, dense colonies that early explorers described as “towns.” Colonies are divided by topographic and vegetational features into semidiscrete wards formed from smaller extended family groups, or coteries. Colonies usually cover about 100 hectares (247 acres), but the largest ever recorded was a black-tailed prairie dog colony in Texas that formerly stretched across 65,000 square km (25,000 square miles) and contained an estimated 400 million individuals.
During the day, foraging above ground is the principal activity. Succulent parts of herbs and grasses, leaves, and new shrub growth are eaten in the spring, and seeds are the primary component of the summer diet, with stems and roots being the mainstay in fall and early winter. The black-tailed and Mexican prairie dogs do not hibernate and are periodically active during winter; they do not store food in their burrows. During winter when food is scarce, black-tails remain in their burrows for long periods without food or water, using physiological adaptations to control their metabolism. The other three species become torpid in October or November and emerge in March or April. Late winter or early spring is the breeding season for all species, and after about a month’s gestation, females drop a litter of up to 10 young. Communication takes the form of alarm calls (repetitious barks and chuckles), threats (snarls, growls, and tooth chatters), and distress calls (screaming); individuals enhance group cohesion by greeting one another upon contact, using vocalizations that are specific to each species.
Natural predators of prairie dogs include badgers, wolves, coyotes, bobcats, black-footed ferrets, golden eagles, and large hawks. Once abundant, prairie dog populations have been drastically reduced in range and number by poisoning programs of ranchers who have considered them as pests and by conversion of habitat to cropland. The black-tailed prairie dog (C. ludovicianus) is the most widespread, living throughout the Great Plains from Canada to northern Mexico; Gunnison’s prairie dog (Cynomys gunnisoni) occurs where Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah meet; the white-tailed prairie dog (C. leucurus) is found from eastern Wyoming through intermontane Rocky Mountain valleys to the eastern margin of the Great Basin; the Utah prairie dog (C. parvidens) is restricted to the southern part of that state; and the Mexican prairie dog (C. mexicanus) occurs in northern Mexico.
© Yvonne Mc
Madison Co., Arkansas, USA
This baby Prairie Kingsnake was captured out of my parents' swimming pool. I've done a lot of looking for snakes in the area and this is the only Prairie Kingsnake I've ever seen around there. It makes me wonder where the parents are...
Prairie Dog at Zoo Lagos, Portugal
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Okay, this was exciting because I had never seen a Prairie Dog, and I saw a lot of them and they were so cuuuute!! However, people around there seemed to regard Prairie Dogs with aproximately the same amount of affection that New Yorkers regard pigeons.