Kansas Wildlife

The variety will surprise you. Because of its central location, Kansas is a meeting ground for North American animals. Six hundred ten species of land animals--birds, mammals, reptiles, and amphibians--live in or pass through Kansas. Boreal animals from the colder northern climes traverse the state on their way south; western creatures migrate east from the Rockies or reside in our arid grasslands; southern wildlife pushes north into Kansas on its way back from winter quarters or settles permanently in our Red Hills; and eastern species invade our deciduous forests.

In Kansas Wildlife four of the state's best wildlife photographers combine 130 photographs to create a colorful sampler of the state's biodiversity--from delicate Cricket Frogs to ponderous Bison, from stately Great Blue Herons to madcap Chickadees, from cautious Ornate Box Turtles to high-strung Prairie Rattlesnakes.

Naturalist Joe Collins provides detailed figure captions full of little-known information about the habits and habitats of Kansas creatures. Did you know, for example, that the Eastern Yellowbelly Racer, a fast and aggressive snake, sometimes follows people who enter its territory during the spring courting season? Have you heard the high-pitched howl of the Northern Grasshopper Mouse, a predatory mouse that occasionally stands on its hind feet and howls like a miniature wolf? Did you know that hummingbirds, the only birds that can fly backwards, must refuel every ten to fifteen minutes? Did you realize, in your wildest dreams, that there are often 750 Prairie Ringneck Snakes to the acre?

"Look for these animals the next time you stroll the natural places of Kansas," Collins writes. "I think the variety will surprise you as much as it surprised me on my first Kansas snake hunt twenty years ago, and still does today."