Life Above and Below Ground

Above ground, prairie dogs usually look for plants to eat, eat, or scan for predators, and at a warning bark they dive into a dark city of tunnels where they spend more than half their lives. They play an important role in the prairie ecosystem, and their habits change the environment in ways that increase plant and animal diversity. Black-tailed prairie dogs once lived throughout most of the Great Plains, but eradication programs have reduced their range from thousands of square miles to a few scattered preserves like this one at Devils Tower National Monument. They now inhabit about 2 percent of the area they occupied 200 years ago. Prairie dogs can bite, some may have plague-carrying fleas, human food sickens them and encourages them to wander into roads where they may be run over, and their holes may also shelter black widow spiders and rattlesnakes, both of which have poisonous bites.

Hulett, Wyoming · United States