#wildlife: virginia

[snototter]

A dark fishing spider (Dolomedes tenebrosus) in Mason Neck, Virginia, USA

by Judy Gallagher

[vandaliatraveler]

Spring in the Cheat River Canyon.

From top: lowbush blueberry (Vaccinium pallidum); the pendulous green flowers of striped maple (Acer pensylvanicum); sweet white violet (Viola blanda), which loves cool, moist forests; wild strawberry (Fragaria virginiana), which has been hybridized with a South American species to produce commercial strawberries; marsh blue violet (Viola cucullata), an elegant, gregarious violet found growing in seeps and along streambanks; smooth Solomon's seal (Polygonatum biflorum); great white trillium (Trillium grandiflorum); a West Virginia white (Pieris virginiensis) sipping nectar from a sweet white violet; and broadleaf toothwort (Cardamine diphylla), the larval host plant for the West Virginia white.

Note: this hauntingly beautiful butterfly, a flitting ghost in Appalachia's April forests, is in serious decline because it confuses invasive garlic mustard for its host plant, Cardamine. Garlic mustard is toxic to its larvae. Another example of how an invasive species can wreak havoc on the vital lifecycles of our native ecosystems.

[vyva-melinkolya]

Monongahela WV

[sitting-on-me-bum]

Young Chincoteague ponies wrestle on Chincoteague Island, part of Virginia's Eastern Shore, in the 1970s.

PHOTOGRAPH BY JAMES L. STANFIELD, NAT GEO IMAGE COLLECTION

[fatchance]

Virginia creeper creeping.

At Hoffler Creek Wildlife Preserve, Portsmouth, Virginia.

[jb-fotoz]

House Finch

[juls-lens]

baby sheep ! 🐑

📍colonial williamsburg, virginia

**this work is my original photography - please do not reupload without credit or claim as your own**

[swvawildlifecenter]

Is it dinner time? Waking up from a looooong sleep, these young Virginia Opossums smell food and are eager to get to chowing down... riiiight after they check out the camera, first! Opossums are super cute but they have to get a carefully balanced diet in order to grow big and healthy -- while it is tempting to want one as a pet, keep in mind these are wild animals and should be kept as wild animals. Robbing them of a chance to be wild is against their best interest.

[rednblacksalamander]

Foxes have only two settings.

[instantfestivallawyerathlete]

Great Blue Heron on Chincoteague Island. by Kevin B. Moore

[shadowkira]

Rough green snake

(Opheodrys aestivus)

[snototter]

A female white banded crab spider (Misumenoides formosipes) camouflages on a flower in Aden, Virginia, USA

by Judy Gallagher

[vandaliatraveler]

A hike in the Cheat River Canyon on a hazy, mid-summer day brings a great many rewards, both large and small.

From top: Fractured and pitted sandstone gives testimony to the canyon's ancient struggle with the elements; black cohosh (Actaea racemosa or Cimicifuga racemosa), whose towering flower spikes stalk the old woods like magical beings; the colorful rock harlequin (Corydalis sempervirens), an endangered fumitory that haunts the canyon's rocky outcrops; pinesap (Monotropa hypopitys), a parasitic plant closely related to Indian pipe; spotted St. John's wort (Hypericum punctatum), which is distinguished from the invasive St John's wort (Hypericum perforatum) by the numerous black dots on its flowers and leaves; downy rattlesnake plantain (Goodyera pubescens), a shade-tolerant terrestrial orchid that favors oak-hickory woods; shrubby St. John's wort (Hypericum prolificum), a mounding, deciduous shrub of open, sandy woods; orange-fringed orchid (Platanthera ciliaris), a stunning late summer beauty of Appalachia's moist meadows and open woods; a hummingbird clearwing moth (Hemaris thysbe) visiting a late-blooming milkweed; a silvery checkerspot (Chlosyne nycteis) drinking up the nectar of a butterfly milkweed (Asclepias tuberosa); an American green crab spider (Misumessus oblongus) stalking a black-eyed Susan for its next meal; a large milkweed bug (Oncopeltus fasciatus) being perfectly beautiful on a lazy summer day; and last but not least, a hulking patch of eastern Jack-0'-lanterns (Omphalotus illudens), which contrary to what field guides say have never glowed in the dark for me (I love the toxic little beauties nonetheless).

[wandering-jana]

The Delmarva Fox Squirrel are a subspecies of the Fox Squirrel that lives in pockets on the Delmarva Peninsula (east coast of Virginia, Delaware, Maryland). Taken at Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge, Virginia:

[bluecycleobject]

[fatchance]

Common persimmon (Diospyros virginiana) at Hoffler Creek.