Environment Reference Libraries

Carlsbad Caverns National Park is located in southeastern New Mexico in the United States. The park holds 46,766 acres of land, of which 2/3 is a designated wilderness, and is thought to have been discovered by Jim White, who entered the Carlsbad Caverns and named many of the areas within the caverns, including Queens Chamber, New Mexico Room, Green Lake Room, Giant Dome, Witch's Finger, and...

Zion National Park is located near Springdale, Utah in the southwestern United States. The park holds 146,597 acres of protect land that was once inhabited by Native American tribes like the Parowan Fremont and Basketmaker Anasazi tribes. The Mormons were the first people of European ancestry to inhabit the area and in 1863, Isaac Behunin, the man who is credited with naming the area, moved...

Yosemite National Park is located in eastern California in the United States in the central area of Sierra Nevada, extending to the western slopes of the range. The park holds 761,268 acres of protected land. The area became very popular after Thomas Ayres, the artist who was responsible for much of the publicity of the area, and an entrepreneur named James Mason Hutchings visited in 1855....

Canyonlands National Park is located in southern Utah in the United Sates. It occurs near the city of Moab and is divided into four distinct areas. These areas are comprised of the Green River and Colorado Rivers and their tributaries, the Needles, the Island in the Sky, and the Maze. The park holds 337,598 acres of protected land and was established in 1964. The four areas of Canyonland...

Yellowstone National Park is located in the United States. The majority of the park is located in Wyoming, but there are smaller areas of the park in Idaho and Montana. It is thought that this area was the first to be established as a national park in the entire world. The area was home to Native Americans for about 11,000 years, but was not well known to Americans until the 1860’s, when the...

Death Valley National Park is located in Nevada and California in the United States. Many tribes of nomadic Native Americans originally inhabited the area, like the Timbisha tribe that was present around 1,000 AD. It was discovered by American and European settlers who were searching for a shortcut to the gold mines in California. The valley was given its name by this group, despite the fact...

Lopha cristagalli, also known as cockscomb oyster, is a species of marine bivalve mollusks within the family Ostreidae. This species has a shell with the potential to reach a maximum diameter of roughly 20.5 centimeters, 10 centimeters being the most common. The coloration varies from dark to light purple and is thick, strongly ribbed, and slightly inequitable shell. The shell inside is...

The “Great Scallop” or “King Scallop”, Pecten maximus, is a species of scallop, an edible saltwater clam, a marine bivalve mollusk belonging to the family Pectinidae, the scallops. This particular scallop is the type species of the genus. Pecten maximus may in fact be conspecific with Pecten jacobaeus, the “Pilgrim’s Scallop”, which as a much more restricted distribution....

Anadara granosa, known also as Tegillarca granosa, is a species of ark clam known as the blood cockle because of the red haemoglobin liquid within. It’s found throughout the Indo-Pacific region from the eastern coast of South Africa towards the north and eastwards to Southeast Asia, Polynesia, Australia, and up towards northern Japan. It resides mostly in the intertidal zone at one to two...

Arca Noae, also known as the Noah’s Ark shell, is a species of bivalve mollusk within the family of Arcidae. It’s found in the Mediterranean Sea along with the Adriatic Sea from low tide mark to a depth of about 200 feet. The shell of this species grows to about 4 inches in length. It’s shortened at the anterior end and elongated at the posterior end. It is normally striped in brown...