What’s usually purple, but sometimes pink,
and in the summer you might want it in a drink?
Creature: Forest Inhabitants
Creatures that thrive in forest ecosystems, from birds to mammals to insects.
Featured Creature: Kingfisher
What creature often looks blue, but isn’t, is found on every continent but Antarctica, and inspired a train’s design?
Featured Creature: Strangler Fig
What creature grows backwards and can swallow a tree whole?
Featured Creature: ‘Ōhi’a Lehua
What tree has adapted to grow directly in lava rock and is a keystone species of the Hawaiian watershed?
Featured Creature: Stone Pine
What Mediterranean tree is uniquely equipped to withstand wildfires with armor-like bark and high, out of reach, branches?
Featured Creature: Slow Loris
What creature has large eyes, dexterous feet, and is the only venomous primate known to exist??
The slow loris (Nycticebus)!
Featured Creature: Leafcutter Bee
What creature carves out little pieces of tree leaves to build its nest inside hollow stems?
The Leafcutter Bee!
Featured Creature: Chevrotain
What creature is the world’s smallest ungulate?
The chevrotain!
Featured Creature: Bearded Vulture
What handsome creature dyes its feathers and almost exclusively eats bones?
The bearded vulture!
Featured Creature: Cork Oak
What creature is the engine of the Portuguese economy and works hard to delight wine-lovers around the world?
The Cork Oak!
Featured Creature: Northern Cardinal
What instantly recognizable songbird holds seven state titles and has the crown to prove it?
The Northern Cardinal!
Featured Creature: Northern Red Oak
What statuesque organism is a champion of beauty, hardiness, and capacity to nurture life around it?
The Northern Red Oak!
Featured Creature: Crow
What common bird possesses an uncommon intelligence, including diversified communication, excellent memory, and a talent for mathematics?
The crow!
Featured Creature: Canada Lynx
What furry feline has stealthy skills, built-in snow gear, and a surprising screech?
The Canada lynx!
Featured Creature: American Chestnut
What tree, the “Redwood of the East,” once dominated the forests of the Eastern United States, and the cultural landscape as well?
The American Chestnut!
Featured Creature: Bamboo
What organism can grow up to 35 inches in a day, conduct electricity, and survive an atomic bomb?
Bamboo!
Featured Creature: Pando
What is the heaviest, oldest and one of the largest creatures on the planet?
Featured Creature: Black Drongo
What small but fearless songbird can astonish with its aerial acrobatics and is always ready to battle much bigger birds for dominance?
The Black Drongo!
Featured Creature: Nilgai
Which creature is the largest Asian antelope, considered sacred to some and pest to others?
The Nilgai!
Featured Creature: Luna Moths
What nocturnal creatures native to North America are known for their beauty and the fact that they don’t eat at all in their adult life?
Luna moths!
Featured Creature: Beaver
Which creature fights fires, creates wetlands, recharges groundwater, alters landscapes, and is a climate hero?
Beavers!
Featured Creature: Turkey Tails
Which fungi creature gets its name from a bird, helps heal internal wounds, and benefits people worldwide?
Featured Creature: Wasps
Which creature is a master of architecture, contributes to human food sources, and has a mutually beneficial relationship with numerous plant species?
Featured Creature: Banded Mongoose
Which creature enjoys social gatherings, is well adapted to its habitat, and can be very altruistic? The Banded Mongoose is a small mammal with a mass of approximately ≤2kg (or 4 lbs) found in (and indigenous to) various parts of Africa. While most other mongoose species live a solitary life, the banded mongoose is gregarious…
Featured Creature: Lichen
Which creature is a combination of two other organisms, comes in bright colors, and helps us measure air quality?
Lichen!
Featured Creature: Atlas Moth
What creature has no mouth, is known for colorful patterns, and is famous for mimicking a deadly predator?
Featured Creature: Poison Dart Frog
What creature the size of a paperclip is lethal enough to kill ten grown men? The poison dart frog! What makes the poison dart frog so powerful? Poison dart frogs – so named because the Indigenous Emberá people of Colombia traditionally used the venom in blow darts – are some of the most toxic creatures…