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Animal Tracks
Expand your knowledge of New Mexico by learning about animal tracks. Hey, this might be a great school project.
Beaver
The beaver is a primarily nocturnal, large, semi-aquatic rodent known for building dams, canals, and lodges (homes) to provide still, deep water to protect against predators, and to float food and building material. Their decline is due to extensive hunting for fur and because their harvesting of trees and flooding of waterways may interfere with other land uses.
Black Bear
The black bear has an excellent sense of smell and can stand and walk on its hind legs although it is more normal for them to walk on all fours. When it stands, it is usually to get a better scent or to look at something. The characteristic shuffling gait results from their plantigrade (flat-footed) walk, with the hind legs slightly longer than the forelegs.
Cottontail Rabbit
The cottontail rabbit has a stub tail with a white underside that shows when they are retreating, giving them their name "cottontails." Not usually active in the middle of the day, they can be seen in the early morning or late afternoon. Mainly eating grass, it will eat many other plants, even cacti. It gets its water mostly from the plants it eats.
Coyote
The American jackal's (or the prairie wolf) name "coyote" is borrowed from Mexican Spanish language. Its scientific name, Canis latrans, means "barking dog." The color of the coyote's pelt varies from grayish brown to reddish-gray on the upper parts, while the throat and belly tend to have a buff or white color. They have a very distinctive howl.
Elk
The elk is one of the largest species of deer in the world and one of the largest mammals in North America and eastern Asia. Elk range in forest and forest-edge habitat, feeding on grasses, plants, leaves, and bark. Male elk have large antlers which are shed each year and their bugle call is one of the most distinctive calls in nature.
Mountain Lion
The Mountain Lion is also known as puma, cougar, catamount, or panther depending on the region of the Americas. This large, solitary cat has the greatest range of any large wild mammal in this Hemisphere. It is the second heaviest cat in the American continents after the jaguar, and the fourth heaviest in the world.
Porcupine
Porcupines are rodents with a coat of sharp spines, or quills, that defend them from predators. Their quills or spines are modified hairs coated with thick plates of keratin. The quills are released by contact with them, or they may drop out when the porcupine shakes its body, but cannot be projected at attackers, contrary to popular belief.
