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Biology 250
Devils Tower
Wildlife is abundant at Devils Tower National Monument. Wildflowers, sedges and occasional shrubs provide food and habitat for mammals, birds, reptiles, insects, and amphibians. Black-tailed prairie dogs make their home in the soft alluvial soil along the river. Even the Tower provides homes for swallows, rock doves, and chipmunks.
Red Tailed Hawk
Description
Red-tailed Hawks are large hawks with typical Buteoproportions: very broad, rounded wings and a short, wide tail.Most Red-tailed Hawks are rich brown above and pale below, with a streaked belly and, on the wing underside, a dark bar between shoulder and wrist. The tail is usually pale below and cinnamon-red above, though in young birds it’s brown and banded. “Dark-morph” birds are all chocolate-brown with a warm red tail. “Rufous-morph” birds are reddish-brown on the chest
with a dark belly.
Behavior
You’ll most likely see Red-tailed Hawks soaring in wide circles high over a field. When flapping, their wingbeats are heavy. In high winds they may face into the wind and hover without flapping, eyes fixed on the ground. They attack in a slow, controlled dive with legs outstretched – much different from a falcon’s stoop.
Habitat
The Red-tailed Hawk is a bird of open country. Look for it along fields and perched on telephones poles, fenceposts, or trees standing alone or along edges of fields.
Diet
Mammals make up the bulk of most Red-tailed Hawk meals. Frequent victims include voles, mice, wood rats, rabbits, snowshoe hares, jackrabbits, and ground squirrels. The hawks also eat birds, including pheasants, bobwhite, starlings, and blackbirds; as well as snakes and carrion.
Buteo jamaicensis
Devils Tower is America's first national monument, created by President Theodore Roosevelt under the Antiquities Act in 1906.
Little Brown Bat
Myotis lucifugus
Description
Their fur is glossy, and can be dark-brown, golden-brown, reddish, or olive-brown. Albino individuals have also been observed. The fur on the belly is lighter than the fur on the back. Wings and membranes between the legs are dark brown or black, and have almost no hair. Little brown bats have small ears and large hind feet. The hind foot has hairs that extend past the toes.Little brown bats are tiny, and weigh between 5 and 14 g. They are between 60 and 102 mm long, and have a wingspan between 222 and 269 mm.
Description
Large chicken-like bird. Grayish in color. Belly black. Long tail, with spiky tail feathers. They are the largest in the grouse family
Habitat
Grassland
Foothills, plains, and mountain slopes where sagebrush is present.
Food
Plants; Leaves, buds, stems, flowers, fruit, and insects.
Behavior
Multiple males display in a group display a lek.
Centrocercus urophasianus
Sage Grouse
Habitat
One of the most important aspects of little brown bat habitat is the presence of good roosts. Little brown bats use three different kinds of roosts: day, night, and hibernation roosts. In order for a place to serve as a roost, the air temperature there must remain about the same all the time. Day and night roosts are used by active bats. These roosts can be found in buildings, in trees, under rocks, and in piles of wood.
Diet
Little brown bats eat mostly insects; wasps and moths are the majority of their diet in such an environment. They can consume up to half of their body weight each night, and must drink water while awake, like humans do.
Adaptation
Blue spruce commonly occurs on stream banks in moist canyon bottoms, but may grow on gentle to steep mountain slopes in Douglas fir or spruce-fir woods up to timberline; at 1800-3000 meters elevation in mid-montane forests. It often grows with subalpine fir, white fir, and Engelmann spruce. It is cultivated on a wide variety of soils, except those that are very moist.
Needles are single, very stiff and sharp pointed, angular or four-sided, 1 to 1-1/4 inches long, with a bluish color especially distinct on the new growth.
Cones are light brown and cylindrical, very sharp and 2-1/2 to4-1/2 inches long.
The bark is silvery gray-brown and composed of many thin scales divided into vertical ridges.
Colorado blue spruce grow 75 to 100 feet tall. They make good winter cover for wildlife.
Centrocercus urophasianus
Blue Spruce Tree
Whitebark Pine
Pinus albicaulis
Description
Needles are 4" blunt and blue-green with white striped inner surfaces. They are in bundles of 5.
Cones are 9" cylindrical and usually curved, reddish to silvery and hang down. Bark is gray and square plated.
Habitat
Whitebark pine grows in the highest elevation forest and at timberline. Its distribution is essentially split into two broad sections, one following the British Columbia Coast Ranges, the Cascade Range, and the Sierra Nevada, and the other covering the Rocky Mountains from Wyoming to Alberta.
Whitebark pine is abundant and vigorous on the dry, inland slope of the Coast and Cascade Ranges. It is absent from some of the wettest areas, such as the mountains of Vancouver Island. In the Olympic Mountains, it is confined to peaks in the northeastern rain shadow zone.
Leaves: Needles borne singly; about 1" long; evergreen; blue-green to dark green; 4-angled; not as sharp pointed as blue spruce; tend to be crowded on around upper side of twig; fragrant when crushed.
Twigs/buds: Leaves attached with a short stalk that remains part of the twig, so twig rough; young twigs with minute hairs. Buds with scales that lie fairly flat.
Flowers/fruit: Fruit a papery cone that hangs down; about 1" to 2-1/2" long; light chestnut-brown; papery scales are slightly round-toothed at tip.
Bark: Red to purple-brown; made-up of thin scales; thinner than blue spruce.
Wood: Moderate importance; heartwood not distinct; nearly white to light brown; growth rings distinct; used for lumber, poles, ties, and fuel.
General: Native throughout the Rocky Mountains and parts of the Pacific Northwest and western Canada. Slow growing. Likes cool, moist sites and good soil. Wind-throw (trees being blown over) is a problem if the site is disturbed. Shade tolerant.
Picea engelmannii
Engelmann Spruce
