Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum
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Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum
The Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum is a 98-acre (40 ha) zoo, aquarium, botanical garden, natural history museum, publisher, and art gallery founded in 1952. Located just west of Tucson, Arizona, it features two miles (3.2 km) of walking paths traversing 21 acres (8.5 ha) of desert landscape. It is one of the most visited attractions in Southern Arizona. The nonprofit organization focuses on the interpretation of the natural history, plants and animals of the Sonoran Desert. The museum is home to more than 230 animal species and 1,200 varieties of plants. It is open every day through the year, and hosts nearly 400,000 visitors annually, including visitors from abroad. The museum is an accredited member of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, a member of the American Alliance of Museums and the American Public Gardens Association. History Founded in 1952, the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum interprets the complete natural history of a single region—the Sonoran Desert and a ...
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Tucson, Arizona
, "(at the) base of the black [hill]" , nicknames = "The Old Pueblo", "Optics Valley", "America's biggest small town" , image_map = , mapsize = 260px , map_caption = Interactive map outlining Tucson , image_map1 = File:Pima County Incorporated and Unincorporated areas Tucson highlighted.svg , mapsize1 = 250px , map_caption1 = Location within Pima County , pushpin_label = Tucson , pushpin_map = USA Arizona#USA , pushpin_map_caption = Location within Arizona##Location within the United States , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_type1 = U.S. state, State , subdivision_type2 = List of counties in Arizona, County , subdivision_name = United States , subdivision_name1 = Arizona , subdivision_name2 = Pima County, Arizona, Pima , established_title = Founded , established_date ...
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Mammoth
A mammoth is any species of the extinct elephantid genus ''Mammuthus'', one of the many genera that make up the order of trunked mammals called proboscideans. The various species of mammoth were commonly equipped with long, curved tusks and, in northern species, a covering of long hair. They lived from the Pliocene epoch (from around 5 million years ago) into the Holocene at about 4,000 years ago, and various species existed in Africa, Europe, Asia, and North America. They were members of the family Elephantidae, which also contains the two genera of modern elephants and their ancestors. Mammoths are more closely related to living Asian elephants than African elephants. The oldest representative of ''Mammuthus'', the South African mammoth (''M. subplanifrons''), appeared around 5 million years ago during the early Pliocene in what is now southern and eastern Africa. Descendant species of these mammoths moved north and continued to propagate into numerous subsequent ...
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Turkey (bird)
The turkey is a large bird in the genus ''Meleagris'', native to North America. There are two extant turkey species: the wild turkey (''Meleagris gallopavo'') of eastern and central North America and the ocellated turkey (''Meleagris ocellata'') of the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico. Males of both turkey species have a distinctive fleshy wattle, called a snood, that hangs from the top of the beak. They are among the largest birds in their ranges. As with many large ground-feeding birds (order Galliformes), the male is bigger and much more colorful than the female. Native to North America, the wild species was bred as domesticated turkey by indigenous peoples. It was this domesticated turkey that later reached Eurasia, during the Columbian exchange. In English, "turkey" probably got its name from the domesticated variety being imported to Britain in ships coming from the Turkish Levant via Spain. The British at the time therefore associated the bird with the country Turke ...
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White-tailed Deer
The white-tailed deer (''Odocoileus virginianus''), also known as the whitetail or Virginia deer, is a medium-sized deer native to North America, Central America, and South America as far south as Peru and Bolivia. It has also been introduced to New Zealand, all the Greater Antilles in the Caribbean (Cuba, Jamaica, Hispaniola, and Puerto Rico), and some countries in Europe, such as the Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Romania and Serbia. In the Americas, it is the most widely distributed wild ungulate. In North America, the species is widely distributed east of the Rocky Mountains as well as in southwestern Arizona and most of Mexico, except Baja California peninsula, Lower California. It is mostly displaced by the black-tailed deer, black-tailed or mule deer (''Odocoileus hemionus'') from that point west except for mixed deciduous riparian corridors, river valley bottomlands, and lower foothills of the northern Rocky Mountain region from Wyoming west to eastern Washing ...
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North American Cougar
The North American cougar (''Puma concolor couguar'') is a cougar subspecies in North America. It was once common in eastern North America, and is still prevalent in the western half of the continent. This subspecies includes populations in western Canada, the western United States, Florida, Mexico and Central America, and possibly South America northwest of the Andes Mountains. It is the biggest cat in North America, with North American jaguars being fairly small. It thus includes the extirpated Eastern cougar and extant Florida panther populations. Taxonomic history As of 2017, ''P. c. cougar'' was recognised as being valid by the Cat Classification Taskforce of the Cat Specialist Group. ''P. c. costaricensis'' had been regarded as a subspecies in Central America. Description The North American cougar has a solid tan-colored coat without spots and weighs . Females average , about the same as a jaguar in the Chamela-Cuixmala Biosphere Reserve on the Mexican Pacific coas ...
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Lizard
Lizards are a widespread group of squamate reptiles, with over 7,000 species, ranging across all continents except Antarctica, as well as most oceanic island chains. The group is paraphyletic since it excludes the snakes and Amphisbaenia although some lizards are more closely related to these two excluded groups than they are to other lizards. Lizards range in size from chameleons and geckos a few centimeters long to the 3-meter-long Komodo dragon. Most lizards are quadrupedal, running with a strong side-to-side motion. Some lineages (known as " legless lizards"), have secondarily lost their legs, and have long snake-like bodies. Some such as the forest-dwelling '' Draco'' lizards are able to glide. They are often territorial, the males fighting off other males and signalling, often with bright colours, to attract mates and to intimidate rivals. Lizards are mainly carnivorous, often being sit-and-wait predators; many smaller species eat insects, while the Komodo eats mamma ...
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Mearns Coyote
The coyote (''Canis latrans'') is a species of canine native to North America. It is smaller than its close relative, the wolf, and slightly smaller than the closely related eastern wolf and red wolf. It fills much of the same ecological niche as the golden jackal does in Eurasia. The coyote is larger and more predatory and was once referred to as the American jackal by a behavioral ecologist. Other historical names for the species include the prairie wolf and the brush wolf. The coyote is listed as least concern by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, due to its wide distribution and abundance throughout North America. The species is versatile, able to adapt to and expand into environments modified by humans. It is enlarging its range by moving into urban areas in the eastern U.S. and Canada. The coyote was sighted in eastern Panama (across the Panama Canal from their home range) for the first time in 2013. The coyote has 19 recognized subspecies. The avera ...
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Peccary
A peccary (also javelina or skunk pig) is a medium-sized, pig-like hoofed mammal of the family Tayassuidae (New World pigs). They are found throughout Central and South America, Trinidad in the Caribbean, and in the southwestern area of North America. They usually measure between in length, and a full-grown adult usually weighs about . They represent the closest relatives of the family Suidae, which contains pigs and relatives. Together Tayassuidae and Suidae are grouped in the Suina within the Artiodactyla (even toed ungulates). Peccaries are social creatures that live in herds. They eat roots, grubs, and a variety of foods. They can identify each other by their strong odors. A group of peccaries that travel and live together is called a "squadron". A squadron of peccaries averages between six and nine members. Peccaries first appeared in North America during the Miocene, and migrated into South America during the Pliocene-Pleistocene as part of the Great American In ...
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North American Beaver
The North American beaver (''Castor canadensis'') is one of two extant beaver species, along with the Eurasian beaver (''Castor fiber''). It is native to North America and introduced in South America (Patagonia) and Europe (primarily Finland and Karelia). In Canada and the United States, the species is often referred to simply as "beaver", though this causes some confusion because another distantly related rodent, ''Aplodontia rufa'', is often called the "mountain beaver". Other vernacular names, including American beaver and Canadian beaver, distinguish this species from the other extant beaver species, ''Castor fiber'', which is native to Eurasia. The North American beaver is one of the official national wildlife of Canada symbols and is the official state mammal of Oregon and New York. Taxonomy Evolution The first fossil records of beaver are 10 to 12 million years old in Germany, and they are thought to have migrated to North America across the Bering Strait. The oldest foss ...
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Coati
Coatis, also known as coatimundis (), are members of the family Procyonidae in the genera '' Nasua'' and '' Nasuella''. They are diurnal mammals native to South America, Central America, Mexico, and the southwestern United States. The name "coatimundi" comes from the Tupian languages of Brazil, where it means "lone coati". Locally in Belize, the coati is known as "quash". Physical characteristics Adult coatis measure from head to the base of the tail, which can be as long as their bodies. Coatis are about tall at the shoulder and weigh between , about the size of a large house cat. Males can become almost twice as large as females and have large, sharp canine teeth. The measurements above relate to the white-nosed and South America coatis. The two mountain coatis are smaller. All coatis share a slender head with an elongated, flexible, slightly upward-turned nose, small ears, dark feet, and a long, non-prehensile tail used for balance and signaling. Ring-tailed coatis ...
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Bighorn Sheep
The bighorn sheep (''Ovis canadensis'') is a species of sheep native to North America. It is named for its large horns. A pair of horns might weigh up to ; the sheep typically weigh up to . Recent genetic testing indicates three distinct subspecies of ''Ovis canadensis'', one of which is endangered: ''O. c. sierrae''. Sheep originally crossed to North America over the Bering Land Bridge from Siberia; the population in North America peaked in the millions, and the bighorn sheep entered into the mythology of Native Americans. By 1900, the population had crashed to several thousand, due to diseases introduced through European livestock and overhunting. Taxonomy and genetics ''Ovis canadensis'' is one of two species of mountain sheep in North America; the other species being ''O. dalli'', the Dall sheep. Wild sheep crossed the Bering land bridge from Siberia into Alaska during the Pleistocene (about 750,000 years ago) and subsequently spread through western North America as far ...
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North American River Otter
The North American river otter (''Lontra canadensis''), also known as the northern river otter and river otter, is a semiaquatic mammal that only lives on the North American continent, along its waterways and coasts. An adult North American river otter can weigh between . The river otter is protected and insulated by a thick, water-repellent coat of fur. The North American river otter, a member of the subfamily Lutrinae in the weasel family (Mustelidae), is equally versatile in the water and on land. It establishes a burrow close to the water's edge in river, lake, swamp, coastal shoreline, tidal flat, or estuary ecosystems. The den typically has many tunnel openings, one of which generally allows the otter to enter and exit the body of water. Female North American river otters give birth in these burrows, producing litters of one to six young. North American river otters, like most predators, prey upon the most readily accessible species. Fish is a favored food among the ot ...
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