Images

Red Buds blooming along the banks of the Missouri River in April 2011.

Upon making an incision in PLS11-008 in which to implant a telemetry transmitter, black eggs pushed to the surface.  A few of the eggs were collected for analysis on how close she is to spawning.  

Researchers are viewing imagery obtained via the underwater microscope.

Biologists with the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission release a 3 kilogram non-reproductive male pallid sturgeon.

Lisbon Chute is a side channel to the Missouri River between Glasgow and Arrow Rock, Missouri, on the Big Muddy National Wildlife Refuge. It currently has a rock inlet structure (pictured) which controls the amount of water that flows into it from the main channel of the Missouri River.

Biologist Sabrina Davenport tandem tracks the Lower Missouri River during high water on June 2, 2011.  Two boats (note boat out window) tracking in tandem can detect fish effectively across a wider river and can turn to search behind wing dikes and sandbars where sturgeon can hide during higher flows. 

While performing a Flowtracker measurement off of a bridge, a curious gator comes to investigate.

A Morafka's desert tortoise in Saguaro National Park, with radio transmitter attached to its shell as part of a USGS study.

Side shot of butterfly on a flower.

Lake Hartwell, SC.

Local ducks playing at home in the park.

Migrating geese stop at local ecosystem.

Trammel net deployment on the Missouri River.  The wooden object with 2 white buoys in the river is called a "Buck" or a "Mule" and is used to pull the end of the net along in the current.

Pacific Lamprey mouth suckers adhered to the glass at Bonneville Dam fish viewing window.

The native Pacific Lamprey uses the fish ladder at Bonneville Dam.  This species plays a significant role in the foodweb and in Tribal "first foods".--cultural.

Nebraska Game and Parks Commission collaborates with USGS on the Comprehensive Sturgeon Research Project tracking telemetered pallid sturgeon in the Missouri River.

Juvenile lake sturgeon propagated at the Columbia Environmental Research Center.

In efforts to monitor potential bird flu transmission pathways, the USGS works with international partners to mark and track whooper swans with GPS transmitters.

Dr. Sasha Reed is a research ecologist with the USGS who was honored with a 2011 PECASE award.

This large Burmese python, weighing 162 pounds and more than 15 feet long at the time of its capture in 2009, was caught alive in the Everglades and was found to have eaten an American alligator that measured about 6 feet in length.

The Colorado Plateau lies in the Four Corners region of the southwestern United States: western Colorado, northwestern New Mexico, southeastern and eastern Utah, and northern Arizona. Most of the area is drained by the Colorado River and its main tributaries.

A desert tortoise walks in the Mojave Desert.