From the rocky coasts of the Pacific Northwest’s mighty Pacific Ocean to the tops of the Canadian Rockies, through Florida Everglades’ River of Grass and across the painted deserts of the American Southwest then over the Appalachian Mountains … these galleries have a little bit of everything that the best of North American landscapes can offer.
Brushfoots
Gossamer Wings
Swallowtails
Skippers
Sulphurs and Whites
Moths
Metalmarks
North America is wildly rich in butterflies and moths. In the United States and Canada alone, there are roughly 750 species of butterflies and a whopping 11,000 species of moths! With careful and painstaking research, more new species are still being discovered all the time!
Birds A-M
Birds N-W
When it comes to birds, North America is fantastically rich in native species diversity. While some species are found all around the world, the vast majority are found only here and nowhere else.
Bison, Goats, Sheep
Squirrels, Chipmunks
Deer and Elk
Rabbits, Hares, Pikas
Rats, Mice, Voles
Seals and Sea Lions
Foxes, Wolves
Raccoons
Pigs
Pronghorns
Armadillos
Manatees
Bears
Weasels, Otters, Badgers
We mammals have come a long way since the time of the dinosaurs. We’ve conquered the land, sea and air. North America has more than 740 species alive today.
Dragonflies
Grasshoppers
Arachnids
Insects
Marine Invertebrates
Snails, Mollusks
Crustaceans
Myriapods
96% of all currently living animal lifeforms alive today are invertebrates. Included are all the insects, arachnids, worms, crabs, shellfish, starfish, corals, and more! One thing they all have in common? No backbone.
Alligators, Crocodiles
Lizards
Snakes
Turtles, Tortoises
Long before the first dinosaur walked the earth, reptiles ruled the world. 65 million years after the last dinosaur drew its final breath, North America’s modern crocodiles, alligators, snakes, lizards, and turtles and tortoises are still keeping our native natural history alive!
Tree Frogs
Toads
Spadefoots
True Frogs
Salamanders
Did you know the word “amphibian” means “two lives”? All amphibians start their lives in the underwater, but after they go through a series of metamorphosis stages to adulthood, most trade gills for lungs and live the rest of their lives out of the water.
Arethuseae
Calypsoeae
Cranichideae
Cymbidieae
Cypripedieae
Epidendreae
Malaxideae
Maxillarieae
Neottieae
Orchideae
Pogoniinae
Polystachyeae
Triphoreae
Vandeae
Vanilleae
One of the largest families in the plant kingdom with nearly 28 thousand species around the globe, orchids are also one of the most popular and most sought-after flowering plants in history. In Victorian times, entire foreign expeditions were sent around the world at great personal risk led by fearless (and often ruthless) orchid hunters to acquire the next new unknown exotic species from the most distant corner of the Earth. Luckily for us, North America is rich with unique native species found nowhere else in the world!
Wildflowers by Color
Wildflowers by Family
By far our largest collection of galleries, these wildflower image sets are arranged by both color and by taxonomic family for use as a casual identification tool or field guide, or for more thorough scientific research for deeper understanding.
Pitcher Plants
Venus Flytraps
Bladderworts
Butterworts
Sundews
Sometimes called insectivorous plants, these amazing plants have adapted to a life in places where the soil is so poor in nutrients, that they’ve gained the ability to grow by trapping their food with modified leaves. By taking root in a harsh habitat, they have eliminated most of their competition from other plants.
Light-spored Gilled Mushrooms
Brown-spored Gilled Mushrooms
Dark-spored Gilled Mushrooms
Polypore and Crust Fungi
Morels
Jelly-like Fungi
Unique & Unusual Mushrooms
Puffballs
Club, Coral and Fan-like Fungi
Cup-fungi
Boletes
Lichens
Slime Molds
Without the enormous and nearly invisible world of fungi, there would be no forests or plants as we know them, no animals living, feeding and hunting in the forests and nothing to break down what organic matter is left. It’s this wonderful (and often weird) group that keeps nutrients moving and cycling through our world’s ecosystems.
Fruits and Berries
Cacti
Ferns
Bromeliads
Agaves and Yuccas
Palms
Saprophytes
Mosses
Horsetails
Deciduous Trees
Coniferous Trees
Botanical Images
This last and final collection of galleries include all the non-wildflower images such as our native trees, ferns, palms, fruits and berries, cacti, saprophytes, mosses, bromeliads and more!
This beautifully blue male Sierra Madre dancer (Argia lacrimans)was found and photographed on a rock sticking out of Sonoita Creek in Patagonia, Arizona on a mild spring morning. Like all damselflies in the dancer family (named so because of their jerky, erratic and highly active movements during flight) males tend to be extremely colorful while the females tend to be drab in color. Unlike other damselflies, dancers tend to catch their prey “on the fly” rather than catching prey on the ground, and this probably explains why they fly in such an erratic manner. (click image to enlarge)
Sierra Madre Dancer (Argia lacrimans) – Patagonia, Arizona
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