Critter Tales

Looking for citizen scientists to hunt bugs with a phone!

Looking for citizen scientists to hunt bugs with a phone!

By Buckmasters Online

Photo: You may have seen one of these bugs around your house. They can be a nuisance, not to mention they smell bad. These are brown marmorated stink bugs, an invasive species from China accidentally introduced to the United States in the late 1990s. You can tell them apart from native stink bugs by their black-and-white antennae and gray underside... READ MORE

Looking for a few black-footed ferrets

Looking for a few black-footed ferrets

By Buckmasters Online

A group of volunteers for the Arizona Game and Fish Department will soon be using spotlighting as a way to identify the number of endangered black-footed ferrets living in Aubrey Valley near Seligman. Two spring spotlighting projects are in the works. The first has been scheduled for late March, and the second for late April. Spotlighting involves ... READ MORE

When snowy owls appear in Michigan, biologists and researchers get busy

When snowy owls appear in Michigan, biologists and researchers get busy

By Buckmasters Online

From Saginaw Bay to Sault Ste. Marie to Kalamazoo, people across Michigan this winter have reported an influx of snowy owls far, far from their Arctic tundra home. These beautiful white birds, with piercing yellow eyes and nearly 5-foot wingspans, are North America's largest owls, averaging between 3.5 and 6.5 pounds in weight. Snowy owls are rapto... READ MORE

Misdirected desert cardinal relocates in Louisiana

Misdirected desert cardinal relocates in Louisiana

By Buckmasters Online

Photo: A pyrrhuloxia, commonly known as a desert cardinal, was observed and photographed by Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries biologist Dan O’Malley. No one would confuse Jefferson Davis Parish in southwest Louisiana with the deserts of the southwestern U.S. and northern Mexico, but that didn’t matter to one desert cardina... READ MORE

Give me a home, where the buffalo roam

Give me a home, where the buffalo roam

By Buckmasters Online

“Home on the Range,” a favorite song of school children and lovers of wide open spaces, is a bit inaccurate when it comes to one proper, scientific name.  There aren’t any buffalo on the range, but there are American bison. Explorers, French fur trappers and settlers first named these enormous creatures. They used a word in s... READ MORE

If you care about food, respect the humble bat

If you care about food, respect the humble bat

By David Rainer

Photo: Gray bats exit one of thousands of caves in Alabama to forage for insects during the night. – Photo Courtesy Steve Davis/ADNCR One of the most maligned species in the animal kingdom is under scrutiny in Alabama, for good reason. Nick Sharp, Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries Division’s nongame biologist, puts the situation in per... READ MORE

Copyright 2016 by Buckmasters, Ltd.

Copyright 2015 by Buckmasters, Ltd