Lewis and Clark Corps of Discovery Bicentennial

Plants
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Sandhill Crane (Grus canadensis) July 21, 1805~ "Saw several of the large brown or Sandhill crain today with their young. The young Crain is as large as a turkey and cannot fly; they are of the bright red bey colour, or that of the common deer at this season. This bird feeds on grass principally and is found in the river bottom." Lewis

Grizzly Bear- Ursus horribilis May 5, 1805 (Near the mouth of the Milk River) "Capt. Clark & Drewyer killed the largest brown bear this evening which we have yet seen. It was a most tremendous looking animal, and extremely hard to kill notwithstanding he had five balls through his lungs and five others in various parts he swam more than half the distance across the sand bar, and it was at least 20 minutes before he died..." Lewis

Whooping Crane -Grus americana
April 11, 1805~ "Saw some large white cranes pass up the river. These are the largest bird of that genus common to the country through which the Missouri and the Mississippi pass. They are perfectly white except the large feathers of the first two joints of the wing which are black." Lewis

Blue Winged Teal
March 10, 1806 " The blue-winged teal are a very excellant duck, and are the same with those of the Atlantic coast." Lewis (Written at Ft. Clatsop)

Red Brested Merganser
June 21, 1805 "I have seen for the first time on the Missouri at these falls, a species of fishing ducks with white wings, brown and white body and head and a part of the neck adjoining of a brick red, and the beak narrow..." Lewis (Near Great Falls, MT)

Sage Grouse
June 5, 1805 "I saw a flock of the mountain cock, with a long pointed tail which the Indians informed us were common in the Rocky Mountains. I sent Shields to kill one of them, but he was obliged to fire a long distance at them and missed his aim." Lewis

Ring Necked Duck
First described by Lewis and Clark on March 28th, 1806 in the vicinity of Deer Island in the Columbia River.

Pronghorn Antelope
May 15, 1805 "We caught two antelopes at our encampment in attempting to swim the river; the anamals are but lean as yet, and of course not very pleasant food." Clark

Beaver
April 28, 1805 "the beaver have cut great quantities of timber, saw a tree nearly 3 feet in diameter that had been felled by them." Lewis
It was the beaver that was practically more valuable than any of resource at the time. It was highly praised by the fur trade.

Black Bear
May 22, 1805 "I do not believe that the black bear, common to the lower part of this river and the Atlantic States, exists in this quarter; we have neither seen one of them nor their tracks, which would be easily distinguished by its shortness of tallons when compared with the grizly." Lewis
The expedition killed 23 black bear.

Bighorn Sheep
April 26, 1805 Joseph Feilds, on returning from a trip up the Yellowstone River reported that "he saw several of the bighorned anamals in the course of his walk; but they were so shy that he could not get a shot at them; he found a large horn of one of the anamals which he brought with him." Clark

Buffalo
May 15, 1805 "We saw Buffalow on the banks dead, others floating down dead, and other mired every day, those buffalow either drown in swiming the river or brake thro' the ice." Clark ( The expedition killed 227 buffalo total)

Clark's Nutcracker
Aug 22,1805 " I saw today a speciec of woodpecker which fed on seeds of pine. Its beak and tail were white, its wings were black, and every part a dark brown. It about the size of a robin." Lewis (First observed while encamped with the Shoshone Indians, near Tendoy ID.)

Lewis's Woodpecker
Lewis and Clark first mentioned seeing this bird, which they referred to as a black woodpeacker in the summer of 1805 near Helen, MT.

Wolf
July 14, 1806 "the woles are in greatest numbers howling around us and loling about in the plains in view at the distance of tow or three hundred yards." Lewis

Prarie Dog
Lewis went to great lengths describing the "barking squirrel" in the journal. He wrote well over 400 words describing its appreance and habitat. The Prarie Dog was not know to science at the time of the Corps discovery in the fall of 1804 in present day S. Dakota.

Plants
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These are only a few of the animal species described by Lewis and Clark in their journals. They discovered many more for modern science in which the Native cultures showed them along the way as sources of food and medicine. If is wasn't for the kind and generous help by these Native Nations people, the entire expedition may have died of starvation.