Wilderness and Urban Survival Guide
Wilderness Arena > north america
Posts tagged north america
Gila Monster
Gila monster Heloderma suspectum Description: Robust, with a large head and a heavy tail. Its body is covered with beadlike scales. It is capable of storing fat against lean times when food is scarce. Its color is striking in rich blacks laced with yellow or pinkish scales. Characteristics: Not an aggressive lizard, but ready to…
Yellow Bellied Sea Snake
Yellow-bellied sea snake Pelamis platurus Description: Upper part of body is black or dark brown and lower part is bright yellow. Characteristics: A highly venomous snake belonging to the cobra family. This snake is truly of the pelagic species – it never leaves the water to come to shore. It has an oarlike tail to…
Western diamondback rattlesnake
Western diamondback rattlesnake Crotalus atrox Description: The body is a light buff color with darker brown diamond-shaped markings. The tail has heavy black and white bands. Characteristics: This bold rattlesnake holds its ground. When coiled and rattling, it is ready to defend itself. It injects a large amount of venom when it bites, making it…
Mojave (Mohave) rattlesnake
Mojave rattlesnake Crotalus scutulatus Description: The Mojave Rattlesnake’s (also known as Mohave Rattlesnake, Mojave Green, Mojave Diamond Rattlesnake, and Mojave Rattler) entire body is a cream or sandy color, sometimes pale green (depending upon its surroundings) with darker diamond-shaped markings bordered by lighter-colored scales and black bands around the tail. The Mojave rattlesnake is typically…
Eastern diamondback rattlesnake
Eastern diamondback rattlesnake Crotalus adamanteus Description: Dark brown or black, outlined by a row of cream or yellowish scales. Ground color is olive to brown. Characteristics: The largest venomous snake in the United States. Large snakes can have fangs that measure 2.5 centimeters (1 inch) in a straight line. This species has a sullen disposition,…
Cottonmouth
Cottonmouth Agkistrodon piscivorus Description: Also known as water moccasin, swamp moccasin or black moccasin. Colors are variable. Adults are uniformly olive brown or black. The young and subadults are strongly crossbanded with dark brown. Characteristics: These dangerous semiaquatic snakes closely resemble harmless water snakes that have the same habitat. Therefore, it is best to leave…
Coral snake
Coral snake Micrurus fulvius Description: The Coral Snake is colorfully marked with rings that are bright blacks, reds, and yellows in color. Some of the colored bands, particularly the red bands, may be speckled. Other non-poisonous species have similar colors and markings including the Scarlet Snake and the Milk Snake. In North America, to identify…
American copperhead
American copperhead Agkistrodon contortrix Description: Copperhead snakes, also known as death adder, highland moccasin, red snake, and oak snake, have a chestnut color that dominates overall, with darker crossbands of rich browns that grow darker towards the edges and become narrower on top and widen at the bottom. Their pale tan to pinkish tan color…
Wasps and hornets
Wasps and hornets Description: The Wasp, or Hornet (also known as Dirt Daubers, Mud Daubers, Potter Wasps, Velvet Ants, Yellowjackets, Fairyflies), is a rather generic suborder of insects. A Wasp generally a smooth-bodied, slender stinging insects. Like a Bee, Wasps have two pairs of wings, a stinger (only the female Wasps have stingers), and few,…
Bee
Bee Description: Bees are flying insects with brown or black, hairy, fuzz-covered bodies (the hair on their body is used to collect pollen). The bee’s body typically has 3 or 5 dark, black and yellow or orangish, colored hair bands around their body and lack the “thin” abdomen found in hornets and wasps. Bees have…
Latest Comments