Natural History Resources for the Lost Pines and Adjacent Areas

General

• Wildlife fact sheets (TPWD) - Great resource for educational purposes.

Birds

• The Bastrop County Audubon Chapter has a checklist of the birds of Bastrop and Buescher State Parks. A hard copy of this checklist is also available for purchase at the Bastrop and Buescher State Parks headquarters. Bastrop County Audubon also have historical Christmas Bird Count overview data, and frequently organize birding field trips in the Lost Pines.
• Bastrop Audubon also maintains a list of birding hot spots in the Bastrop area.
• Checklist to the Birds of McKinney Roughs (not comprehensive, but gives a good indication of the species that can be observed in the area).
• Texas Bluebird Society - information about bluebirds in Texas and blue bird nest boxes. The Lost Pines area has great habitat for Eastern Bluebirds (Sialia sialis)
• Pines and Prairie Land Trust has a list of birds observed at the Colorado River Refuge.
• For information about monitoring birds in your own back yard, school or a park, check www.birdsource.org This program, supported by the Audubon Society and the Cornel Ornithology Lab, operates the yearly Great Backyard Bird Count (Feb. 17-20, 2006) and Project Feederwatch. You can report your avian sightings to their web site, and explore what others have observed in your community. This data is extremely helpful for ornithologists to monitor population sizes of bird species.

Butterflies, Dragonflies, Other Insects and Arachnids

• Insects of the Texas Lost Pines, by Stephen Welton Taber and Scott B. Fleenor (TAMU Press, 2003). Setting out to identify and describe the insects and related animals most readily observed in the Lost Pines, the authors also discovered some hidden, rare, and never-before-described species. The result is this book, a bestiary of more than 280 species of invertebrates including insects, millipedes, centipedes, spiders, scorpions, mollusks, and worms. Each species description includes common and scientific names; information on biology, distribution, and similar species; and the authors' special remarks.
• Texas Entomology All things buggy in Texas: this collection of information, databases and links by Mike Quinn, Invertebrate Biologist at TPWD, is a great starting place to find information to help identify or learn about insects (and other invertebrates) in Texas.
• BugGuide.Net BugGuide is an online community of naturalists who enjoy learning about and sharing observations of insects, spiders, and other related creatures. Using the best resources available, BugGuide is creating a knowledgebase to help each other and the online community to identify, learn about, and share knowledge of the insect world. A great place to find (or share) photos of insects.
• Butterflies and moths of North America (BAMONA) - a searchable database of verified butterfly and moth records in the United States and Mexico. This site includes dynamic distribution maps, photographs, species accounts, and species checklists for each county in the U.S. and each state in Mexico.
• Monarch Watch is an educational outreach program at the University of Kansas whose goals are to further science education; to promote the conservation of Monarch butterflies; and to involve people across the country in study of the Monarchs' spectacular migration. Their site includes lots of information on how to rear monarchs, how to plant butterfly gardents, and other resources for observing and protecting monarchs (and other butterflies).
• "Butterflies and Moths of North America" has numerous checklists, distribution maps and photos of Butterflies. In particular, they have checklists and photos of the butterlies recorded in Bastrop and Caldwell Counties
• USGS also has a list of common dragonflies and damselflies (Odonata) of Bastrop County
• Odonata Central - John Abbot's (UT Austin) site, designed to make available what is known about the distribution, biogeography and biodiversity of Odonata (dragonflies & damselflies) in North America, including Mexico. Special emphasis, however, is placed on Texas and the surrounding states. Checklists, field guide and over 2000 photos of 336 species. (Note-may not work properly with all browsers; try Firefox if you have problems.)
• Digital Dragonflies - Useful information and beautiful photographs from Forrest Mitchell, Texas Agricultural Experiment Station in Stephenville.
• Texas Butterfly Listserve - Butterfly and Lepidoptery for the state of Texas. Share information on sightings with enthusiasts throughout the state.
• Austin Butterfly Forum - promoting butterfly study, conservation, and knowledge of the butterfly species in the Austin area

Reptiles and Amphibians

• Herps of Texas - Texas Memorial Museum species list of Texas reptiles and amphibians. Has range maps and links to other sources of information about reptiles and amphibians.
• Frogs and Toads of Texas- Gallery of frog and toad photos and calls, provided by TPWD.
• Horned Lizard Conservation Society - Austin-based organization dedicated to protecting horned lizards throughout North America. The site has useful information on the biology of horned lizards, and steps that you can take to help conserve them.
• Endangered Houston Toad - US Fish and Wildlife Service website dedicated to information about the Houston Toad (Bufo houstonensis) and issues relating to its survival. Additional Houston Toad information, and management guidelines, are available from Texas Parks and WIldlife.
  • Houston toads are rarely seen except on warm, humid evenings during the early spring breeding season (January-April). You may be able to hear them in Bastrop State Park.
• Frog Watch - Frogwatch USA is a long-term frog and toad monitoring program managed by the National Wildlife Federation in partnership with the United States Geological Survey. You can learn about your local frogs and toads, and help to conserve these amphibians, as well.

Mammals

• The Mammals of Texas - This online edition of The Mammals of Texas incorporates the complete text and graphics content of the 1994 revision by Drs. William B. Davis and David J. Schmidly published by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. This is a completely revised and updated version of William B. Davis's classic text, which was first published in 1947. Contains extensive information about habitat, range and behavior. The site is keyword-searchable or may be browsed.
• Checklist of Texas Mammals - Maintained by Texas Parks & WIldlife, with links to the information pages and photos from The Mammals of Texas (see above)

Wildflowers

• Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center - Lots of information on wildflowers and other native plants of Texas, the Lost Pines, and North America. Also a great place to visit in person!
• Wildflower Center Native Plant Database - Maintained by the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. Search by common or scientific name, plant families, distribution and plant habit. Contains information about bloom season and color, soil and exposure preferences; links to the PLANTS database, wildlife value, seed sources, propagation, etc.
• USDA Plants Database - The PLANTS Database provides standardized information about the vascular plants, mosses, liverworts, hornworts, and lichens of the U.S. and its territories. It includes names, plant symbols, checklists, distributional data, species abstracts, characteristics, images, plant links, references, crop information, and automated tools. This is a great resource for taxonamy, identification, and propagation.
• Shinners and Mahler's Illustrated Flora of North Central Texas - Keys, descriptions and illustrations of 2200 Texas plants. Authoritative on-line version of the massive book.
• The Flora of Texas Consortium
  This is a collaborative resource developed by Texas A&M University Herbaria, The University of Texas Herbaria, The Botanical Research Institute of Texas and numerous othe Universities and Herbaria. They have incredible databases of vascular plants of Texas. For example, the Herbarium Specimen Browser has lists of specimens in the collections of herbaria around the state. The list can be search by county, by herbarium, by plant family. State maps and lists indicate where specimens of each species have been collected, who collected it and when it was collected.
  This site also has a complete checklist of Vascular Plants Endemic to Texas, which also shows range maps within the state, and information on whether a species is threatened or endangered.
• Vascular Plant Image Gallery - TAMU Bioinformatics Working Group, plant photos, arranged by family, searchable.
• Image Archive of Central Texas PlantsPart of the a UT Austin class, Bio406D-Native Plants of Central Texas, this site has some wonderful plant images and comments to help in identification.
• Native Plant Society of Texas - promoting the conservation, research and utilization of native plants and plant habitats of Texas. In addition to good information about native plants, this site has contact information for local chapters around the state.

Grasses

• Grasses of Texas - Checklist and key to the grasses of Texas
• Know your grasses - Excellent black and white drawings, information on growth habit and distribtion of many Texas grasse.
• The Noble Foundation Plant Image Gallery has a good collection of photos (and information) about common grasses, forbes, trees and shrubs native to Texas and Oklahoma.

Trees & Shrubs

• Texas Native Trees - Based on Benny SImpson's book "A Field Guide to Texas Trees," this website has great photos and growth characteristics over hundreds of native Texas Trees.
• Texas Forest Service maintains the Texas Big Tree Registry. The goal of this program is to locate and recognize the largest known species of its kind that grow in the state of Texas, and to stimulate public interest in trees as a resource.
• Tree Planting Guide for Bastrop, Caldwell, Lee and Fayette Counties, produced by the Pines and Prairies Land Trust, in cooperation with the Texas Forest Service. (Includes trees available at nurseries, not all native).

Fungi and lichen

• Lichens of North America - general information on the biology and ecology of lichen, including information on their significance to humans and wildlife. Lots of great photos, too!!

Soils and Ecoregions

• Level IV ecoregions of Texas - Maps and descriptions
• USDA soil taxonomy maps, keys and descriptions - NRCS soil data. See also http://www.nrcs.usda.gov
• Soil taxonomy - the twelve orders of soil (suborders, too).
• Glossary of soil terms - Soil classification, key and derivation of all those strange names.

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