Swallowtail butterflies are named by scientists to help identify and classify these special insect critters into certain similar characteristic groupings. One such family to which swallowtails belong is called Papilionidae. There are more than 600 species worldwide. In North America, the ...

Bison, scientifically named Bison bison, are big animals. They are a representative today of a vast history of almost innumerable numbers of these shaggy haired plains bovines that once roamed the native grasslands of the Americas. Their heritage includes a long list of ice age bison types, ...

Prairies are grasslands. We normally associate the word prairie to existing stands of native grasses and associated non-woody flowering plants that are part of the mix of diverse species growing in a setting dominated by grasses. They are the primary visual evidence of wavy seed heads and ...

Glacial boulders in Iowa exist in many of our landscapes that have a history of multiple glacial events. One such boulder lies exposed along a small upland creek drainage at the Grammer Grove Wildlife Area. It is just one feature of this public park that helps draw visitors. They can ask a ...

While looking for a method to illustrate the contrasts between large and small, I settled on the bald eagle as one example and will compare it to the Ruby-throated hummingbird, one of the smallest of birds. They are both avian examples of the tremendous diversity within the bird world. They fly ...

Prairies are grasslands, specifically many species of native grasses and a host of flowers and other non-woody vegetation types. These native grasslands were the culmination of very long geological processes whereby nature filled the voids on open landscapes long after thick glacial ice caps ...