Monthly Archives: December 2021

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Wildlife Of Illinois

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The US state of Illinois has many wildlife refuge areas. The Driftless Area in the northwest corner of Illinois holds the tributaries of the Mississippi River and is a great place for trout and other freshwater fish. It is also part of the Mississippi Flyway and a fantastic place for birdwatchers. Another place to see wildlife is the Shawnee National Forest and contains many wilderness areas. There are also state parks and natural areas.

State Mammal
White-tailed deer
State Bird
Northern Cardinal
State Insect
Orange and Black Monarch Butterfly
State Fish
Bluegill
State Reptile
Painted Turtle
State Amphibian
Eastern Tiger Salamander
Among the mammals in Illinois are the white-tailed deer and the bison that are native to the state. About 30 bison graze on the Nachusa Grasslands. Among larger predators are the coyote, American black bear and the bobcat as well as red and gray foxes.
Smaller mammals are rodents like chipmunks, squirrels, deer mice, and the Norway rat. You can also find moles, shrews, rabbits, and bats.
Birds

There are about 450 bird species in Illinois that live year-round or come to the state to breed. Many different waterfowl like seagulls. Among birds of prey are eagles, ospreys, and owls. Owls include the Eastern screech-owl, barred owl and snowy owl. The snowy owl is the species that Hedwig in Harry Potter belongs to.

Among songbirds are blue jays, robins, vireos, cardinals, sparrows, crows, mockingbirds, the eastern bluebird and starlings.

Sea Lamprey Sean Landsman/Engbretson Underwater Photography

Fish


Illinois has many freshwater lakes, ponds, marshes, rivers and streams. The fish in the state include largemouth and smallmouth bass, the bluegill, the pumpkinseed, the crappie, and the warmouth. Some common fish here are channel catfish and bullheads. Other kinds of fish are burbots, perches, saugers, saugeyes, walleyes and the muskellunge. The sea lamprey also makes their home here and are strange-looking creatures with circles of teeth in their mouths.

Reptiles and Amphibians

Among lizards living in Illinois are skinks, legless glass lizards, fence lizards and race runners. There are painted turtles, the rare Blanding’s turtle, the river cooter, the ornate box turtle, and the smooth and spiny soft-shell turtles. There is also the stinkpot, a turtle that gives off a nasty smelling musk.
Snakes in the state include garter snakes, earthsnakes, ratsnakes, foxsnakes, kingsnakes, and watersnakes. There are four venomous snakes – the copperhead, the cottonmouth, the timber rattlesnake and the massasauga rattler.
Among amphibians are different kinds of salamander among them are the lesser siren, which has such tiny limbs that it appears to be legless. The hellbender is also here. Frogs and toads include the American toad, the Fowler’s toad, the crawfish frog, and the Eastern spadefoot. Strecker’s chorus frog is a tiny frog that climbs trees and is nocturnal. There are also a lot of bullfrogs.
Insects and Other Invertebrates

The strangest of wasps in the state are the American pelecinid wasp that has an ovipositor that’s longer than her body and is used to dig into the ground when looking for grubs. When a grub is found she lays an egg on it and goes on to find another grub, When the wasp larvae hatch it chews its way into the grub then chews its way out once it has eaten the viscera. This type of wasp can also reproduce asexually and is a favorite among gardeners.

Other invertebrates found in Illinois include many species of spiders, including orb weavers and crab spiders, flies, including the bee-like tachinid fly, bees, aphids, dragonflies, ladybugs and other beetles, ants, grasshoppers, crickets, butterflies, moths and mosquitoes. There are ticks, mites, booklice, millipedes, centipedes and pillbugs.

There are plenty of worm species among them earthworms, roundworms, arrow worms, horsehair worms, goblet worms, peanut worms and Xenoturbellida, also called strange worms.
Endangered Animals

The mussel Purple lilliput
Short-eared owl
The greater prairie chicken. Also called the pinnated grouse, this bird has become rare due to habitat destruction. It is a charismatic bird mostly due to its strange and wonderful mating ritual.
Starhead topminnow. This little fish is endangered due to the development of the area in and around its habitat, which includes glacial lakes.