What New Plants And Animals Did Lewis And Clark Discover

Meriwether Lewis and William Clark are known as trailblazing explorers of the American West, not pioneering scientists. But during their 8,000-mile journeying from Missouri to the Pacific Bounding main and back betwixt 1804-1806, Lewis and Clark discovered 122 brute species, including iconic American animals like the grizzly bear, coyote, prairie domestic dog and bighorn sheep.

When President Thomas Jefferson get-go charged his assistant Lewis with the mission of finding a passable river road to the Pacific, he included an consignment to "[observe] the animals of the country mostly, & especially those not known in the U.S. the remains and accounts of any which may [exist] deemed rare or extinct."

Jefferson was especially enticed by fossils recovered of mastodons and a type of giant land sloth he dubbed the megalonyx ("big claw"). Unsure of what species the men would encounter in the wilds across Missouri, Lewis took crash courses in phytology, zoology and specimen collection and preservation from the best scientific minds in Philadelphia.

Clark Describes a 'Village of Modest Animals'

Lewis and Clark came upon prairie dogs in 1804 and described them as "little animals" that "make a whistling noise." — Lewis and Clark came upon prairie dogs in 1804 and described them as "picayune animals" that "brand a whistling noise."

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Ane of the about remarkable periods of the expedition (zoologically speaking) occurred between September four and September 24, 1804 during a 263-mile trek from the Niobrara River in Nebraska to the Teton River in modern-day Pierre, South Dakota. In a bridge of just over two weeks, Lewis and Clark encountered four archetype Western animals for the commencement time: the prairie canis familiaris, pronghorn, coyote and the jack rabbit.

READ More than: x Little-Known Facts Well-nigh the Lewis and Clark Trek

In his September 7, 1804 journal entry, Clark describes a "Village of Small animals" discovered in Boyd Canton, Nebraska. The men establish a sloping hillside containing "neat numbers of holes on summit of which these little animals Set erect make a Whistling noise and whin alarmed Footstep into their hole."

Anxious to capture a live specimen, the men tried digging down into the burrows, just later reaching a depth of six feet, they switched tactics and attempted to flush the critters out.

"They spent an entire day hauling buckets of water up from the Missouri River and dumping them down the holes," says Jay Buckley, a history professor at Brigham Young University and author of several books on Lewis and Clark, and Western exploration. "Somewhen they flushed 1 out, put it in a cage and sent information technology to Jefferson. Incredibly, information technology fabricated the trip alive.

There was some disagreement over what to name the curious creatures. Lewis called them "barking squirrels" while Clark referred to them equally "ground rats" or "burrowing squirrels." It was Sergeant John Ordway, an Army volunteer, who first chosen them prairie dogs.

Lewis Marvels at a 'Jackass Rabbit'

A Blacktail jackrabbit. Lewis noted the rabbit with remarkable ears could leap 18 to 20 feet in a single bound. — A Blacktail jackrabbit. Lewis noted the rabbit with remarkable ears could leap 18 to twenty feet in a single bound.

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On September xiv, 1804, most Chamberlain, S Dakota, one of the men killed a large white hare whose long, donkey-like ears inspired the proper name "jackass rabbit," afterwards shortened to jack rabbit. In his journal, Lewis marveled at the jack rabbit's flexible ears, which the animal could "amplify and throw… forrard, or contract and fold... back at pleasure." He observed the jack rabbit could leap 18 to 20 feet in a single bound.

On the very same day near the rima oris of Ball Creek in Due south Dakota, Clark shot a "Buck Goat" of an intriguing species of deer. In his journal, Lewis described the striking animate being as having forked horns or "prongs" and its "brains of the back of his head." Consulting his viii-volume A New and Complete Dictionary of Arts and Sciences, published in 1764 by West. Owen, Lewis concluded that "he is more like the Antilope or Gazelle of Africa than any other Species of Caprine animal."

Gyre to Keep

In fact, the pronghorn is neither goat, antelope or deer, and belongs to its ain family, Antilocapridae. The pronghorn is likewise the fastest iv-legged species in N America, reaching top sprinting speeds of threescore mph. Lewis and Clark stuffed two pronghorn, i male and 1 female person, and shipped them back East to Jefferson.

The mournful wails and yelps of coyotes followed Lewis and Clark to the Pacific and back, merely the team shot and identified the showtime of this new species on September 18, 1804 near Chamberlain, S Dakota, and Clark called information technology a "Prairie Wolff."

"I killed a Prairie Wolff, virtually the size of a gray flim-flam, bushy tail head and ears like a Wolf, Some fur burrows in the footing and barks similar a Modest Dog," wrote Clark.

Grizzlies, Rattlesnakes, Bison Well-nigh Killed the Explorers

An illustration from Lewis and Clark's journal of the Corps of Discovery, 'American having struck a Bear but not killed him escapes into a tree.' — An illustration from Lewis and Clark's journal of the Corps of Discovery, 'American having struck a Comport but not killed him escapes into a tree.'

Everett Drove

Not all of Lewis and Clark's animal encounters were and then at-home and nerveless.

"One of my favorite moments is when Lewis is all alone at the Great Falls in Montana," says Buckley. "In a 24-hour menstruation, he'due south nearly bitten past a rattlesnake, attacked by a wolverine, charged by a bison and eaten past a grizzly bear. That dark, in his journal he says, 'The entire animal kingdom has conspired against me!'"

As for grizzlies, Lewis and Clark were skeptical at first of the native Mandan and Hidatsa'due south accounts of "white bears" weighing over 1,000 pounds, and the explorers scoffed at the state of war paint and other "supersticious rights" the Indians performed before setting out to hunt the mythical beasts.

But afterward, while traversing Montana, Lewis and Clark became believers. In his trademark artistic spelling, Lewis described "a most tremendious looking anamal, and extreemly hard to impale all the same he had five assurance through his lungs and five others in diverse parts… and made the near tremendous roaring from the moment he was shot."

When Lewis had his shut call with a grizzly in Slap-up Falls, he described a massive bear chasing him "open mouthed and full speed" into the river. With nowhere to run, Lewis spun around to face the grizzly armed but with his spear-headed "espontoon." To his not bad relief, the animal retreated.

"So it was, and I feelt myself not a little gratifyed that he had declined the combat," wrote Lewis.

Despite the groovy care taken by Lewis and Clark to collect specimens and include detailed descriptions and measurements of plants and animals in their journals, the men never achieved scientific fame in their lifetimes. After their triumphant return in 1806, Lewis planned to write a 3-volume account of their expedition with an entire volume defended "exclusively to scientific research, and principally to the natural history of those hitherto unknown regions."

Simply Lewis, overburdened in his new post as governor of Louisiana, died suddenly in 1809, and when the expedition journals were finally published in 1814, the editors left out nigh all of the zoological and scientific reports. Information technology wasn't until 1893 that a new edition of the journals was published past naturalist Elliott Coues, who correctly credited Lewis and Clark every bit scientific trailblazers too as daring American explorers.