The black currant is a shrub with maple-like leaves with toothed edges.
Forests are more than just trees. They are a complex community of plants and animals that constantly change, grow, and interact with each other and the nutrient-bearing soils upon which they depend. Once, more than half of Wisconsin was covered in vast stretches of forest: maple woodlands, spruce and pine groves, oak savannas, riverbottom thickets, and more. Over time, the axe, the plow, and the bulldozer have changed that landscape into a patchwork quilt of forest divided by towns, fields, and roads. Some forest wildlife like to live deep in the forest, others prefer living at the forest's edge. Some wildlife need young forests, others require mature, or "old-growth" forests to survive.
Many people mistake this snake for a venomous copperhead. We don't have copperheards in Wisconsin.
Not only does it live on land its whole life, it doesn't have lungs or gills and breathes right through its skin!
In the winter, birch are also easy to identify by the dangling flower clusters in small bunches.
This hare changes its coat twice a year, exchanging a thin brown summer coat for a heavy, white winter coat.
This black or dark brown salamander (another of the mole salamanders) has prominent yellow spots along its body.
The sugar maple was selected as the state tree by school children in a statewide vote in 1893.