Images

Opening of a large lava tube at El Malpais National Monument in western New Mexico and likely roost for bats, 2011.

View from sandstone bluff overlooking extinct lava flows at El Malpais National Monument, New Mexico.

A beard lichen (Usnea sp.) grows on an Island Oak on Santa Rosa Island and helps to create the fog precipitation.

Elk in the Beartooth Mountains, Wyoming. The USGS and partners study the effects of climate change on the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. 

Source: USGS National Wetlands Research Center. Photographer: Brad M. Glorioso. Calling male; Coldwater River National Wildlife Refuge, Mississippi

Anaxyrus fowleri - Fowler's Toad

Capturing juvenile Chinook salmon in Cougar Reservoir, Oregon using a Lampara net.

USGS scientist Dave Brandt holds a captured whooping crane while Dr. Barry Hartup with the International Crane Foundation assesses the bird's health before marking.

Ambystoma californiense - California Tiger Salamander is a A dark brown salamander with yellow spots.

Fishing guide Camp Walker, Catalyst Charters, of Islamorada, Fla.,  took this photo of a Burmese python swimming in Florida Bay from the end of Twisty Channel toward End Key on Nov. 16, 2011. 

View of Boulder Basin, Lake Mead from Fortification Hill.

Iceland gull (Larus glaucoides) photographed during field work in Iceland.

Sabrina Davenport and Caleb Troutt, Five Rivers Services, LLC biologists performing work on the Missouri River for the CERC, hold pallid sturgeon PLS09-012 recaptured on November 1, 2011 near Nebraska City, Nebraska.  Female pallid sturgeon PLS09-012 is in reproductive condition and will spawn in the spring of 2012.

Lila Warren at the USGS Tennessee Cooperative Fishery Research Unit holds a muskellunge fish.  To prevent the disappearance of muskellunge from the Cumberland Plateau, the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency (TWRA) began stocking muskellunge into the upper Caney Fork River system above Great Falls Dam in 1976.

Areas like this tidal freshwater swamp, along the Pocomoke River in Maryland, provide important ecosystem services including improving water quality by trapping watershed sediment before it reaches the Chesapeake Bay. However, a sediment shadow along tidal rivers may limit their resilience to the impacts of sea level rise.

Thousands of young Atlantic salmon are released into the St. Regis River system (a tributary of the St. Lawrence River) in an effort to restore this diminished Lake Ontario fish population. The salmon were reared at the USGS Tunison Laboratory in Cortland, N.Y., and are released by USGS scientists and members of the Mohawk Tribe.

Thousands of young Atlantic salmon are released into the St. Regis River system (a tributary of the St. Lawrence River) in an effort to restore this diminished Lake Ontario fish population. The salmon were reared at the USGS Tunison Laboratory in Cortland, N.Y., and are released by USGS scientists and members of the Mohawk Tribe.

Thousands of young Atlantic salmon are released into the St. Regis River system (a tributary of the St. Lawrence River) in an effort to restore this diminished Lake Ontario fish population. The salmon were reared at the USGS Tunison Laboratory in Cortland, N.Y., and are released by USGS scientists and members of the Mohawk Tribe.

Autumn in the Canadian Rockies.

Autumn in the Canadian Rockies.

Aspens, larches, and a coniferous forest in the Canadian Rockies.

First snowfall of the coming winter in the mountains of Western Canada.