s ealth Children’ UF H Hunt ng Garden Animal Tracks Guide and Scavenger Heali

Can you find these DIRECTIONS: Use this guide to learn about several common animal species found in animal tracks as you walk Florida, taking note of what each animal’s tracks look like. Then explore the garden and look around the garden? for the tracks. Put a check next to each track that you find. Try to find as many as you can!

FLORIDA BOBCAT WHITE-TAILED DEER Lynx rufus floridanus Odocoileus virginianus

DID YOU KNOW? Bobcats can jump as high as 12 feet and run as fast as 34 miles per hour.

DID YOU KNOW? The white-tailed deer gets its name from the long white hair located on the underside of its Range: Most of North America, Lifespan: Typically 3 to 4 years, Range: Found in southern tail and bottom. When it runs, the hair becomes flared from Canada to Mexico, and up to 16 years. Canada to South America, and the deer holds its tail up like a signaling flag. expanding northward into Diet: Typically eats rabbits, inhabiting all of the Canada. rats, raccoons, squirrels, and mainland United States Diet: Feeds on any available Habitat: Almost all habitats, opossums. except the Southwest. plants, eating leaves, twigs, stems, including grasslands, wetlands, Fun facts: The Florida bobcat Habitat: Areas along streams and flowers, fruits, mushrooms, and flatwoods, urban areas, and only sleeps for 2 to 3 hours at a rivers, mixed woodlands, farms, aquatic plants. scrubwoods. time and is primarily a nocturnal and forests. Fun facts: Only male deer grow Size: 15 to 30 lbs. hunter. The bobcat gets its name Size: 110 to 300 lbs.; 6 to 7.75 ft. antlers, which are shed each year. from its “bobbed” tail, which may tall. They are good swimmers and will range from 1 to 7 inches long. use large streams and lakes to Lifespan: Up to 10 years. escape predators. DID YOU KNOW? Alligators are toothy! They have DID YOU KNOW? between 74 to 80 teeth in their mouth. They can grow Range: Native to Lifespan: 7 to 9 years. The great blue heron the East Coast of the more teeth as they age and when their teeth fall out. Diet: Insects, small is the largest heron United States, but has An alligator can go through 2000 teeth in its lifetime! reptiles and mammals, spread to Wisconsin, species in North crayfish, amphibians, and across the Great America, with a wing crustaceans, frogs, and Plains to the Rockies span of 6 feet. aquatic eggs. and California. Fun facts: Its name Habitat: Freshwater comes from the male’s ponds, lakes, canals, bull-sounding call. An ditches and marshes. extremely invasive Size: Usually 3 to 6 in., species, it has spread up to 1.5 lbs. all over the world.

AMERICAN ALLIGATOR DID YOU KNOW? The American bullfrog GREAT BLUE HERON Alligator mississippiensis hibernates during the winter, hiding Ardea herodias under mud until the weather improves.

Range: Found in the Lifespan: 30 to 50 years. Range: Most of North mammals, amphibians, coastal wetlands of the America. insects, small birds, and Diet: Primarily snakes, southeastern United rodents. fish, small mammals, Habitat: Saltwater and States. birds, and turtles. freshwater ecosystems, Fun facts: The great Habitat: Freshwater including open coast, blue heron can Fun facts: Because it lakes and rivers that are marshes, sloughs, hunt both day and is ectothermic (cold- slow-moving. It can also rivers, and lakes. night, thanks to the blooded), the American be found in brackish large number of alligator must lie out in Size: Up to 7.5 lbs, 3 to water habitats, but photoreceptors in the sun to regulate its 4.5 ft. tall. is rarely found in salt its eyes that improve body temperature. Many water. Lifespan: Up to 15 night vision. It can people believe that the AMERICAN years. also fly over 20 miles Size: Up to 1,000 lbs. alligator is green, but per hour! Females can get up to the color actually comes BULLFROG Diet: Primarily small 10 ft. long, males up from the green algae Lithobates catesbeianus fish, but will also eat to 15 ft. and vegetation that shrimp, crabs, small cling to its back.

FOR MORE INFORMATION, VISIT: https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/topic_series_wildlife_of_florida DimensionsTM https://myfwc.com/wildlifehabitats/profiles/ Educational Research Foundation https://ufwildlife.ifas.ufl.edu/ Photo credits: Dr. Steve A. Johnson This Nature Explore® Outdoor Classroom was made possible by funding from the U.S. Forest Service and private https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/ (alligator, bullfrog, heron); donations, in collaboration with the Dimensions Educational Research Foundation and the National Environmental Shutterstock (bobcat, deer). Education Foundation, and with additional support from many community partners.