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Black-tailed prairie dog        Images © Mark A. Chappell

Several species of prairie dogs are found in open grasslands in western North America; the black-tailed prairie dog shown here is the most widely distributed.   Although they are iconic symbols of the western prairies, their current numbers are a small fraction of historic populations -- apparently some 'towns' had more than a million burrow systems and covered many square miles.   These were in the Pawnee Grasslands of northeastern Colorado.

  • Canon 1D4, 800 mm IS lens plus 1.4X converter, some with fill-in flash (2011)