"Meriwether Lewis contributed chiefly to the development of American Zoology by making the starting time faunal studies in the newly acquired Louisiana Territory and by heeding Jefferson's directive to observe 'the animals of the country generally, & especially those non known in the U.S.'"

    "Reubin Field wounded a moos deer this forenoon about our camp," Lewis wrote on 7 July 1806, adding, "my dog much worried."

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    Few of their discoveries seized more interest, even controversy, from the American public. And certainly no others demanded more care than the six live specimens—including ane prairie dog—that endured a four-month, 4,000-mile cage-bound odyssey to Washington City.

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    Lewis wrote his cursory account of the new species on 25 Feb 1806: "the small-scale grey squirrel common to every part of the rocky mountain which is timbered, difirs from the dark brownish squirrel . . . only in its colour."

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    They didn't become credit for it, but Lewis and Clark were the outset to describe these wily canine predators.

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    Drouillard spotted their kickoff mule deer on five September 1804, on the cliffs upstream from the mouth of the Niobrara River in northeast Nebraska. Another deer new to them was related, the Columbian black-tailed deer.

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    The men of the Corps of Discovery must accept been electrified by their outset sighting of the pronghorn antelope at the northeast corner of today's state of Nebraska. Naturalists were eager to find the answers to some basic questions about them.

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    For today's traveler to Idaho's Bitterroot Mountains, seeing an elk is all the same a take chances. Merely hunters don't give up; every autumn, they pester locals with the same question, "Where's the elk?"

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    Labiche brought a specimen into Long Camp on the Clearwater River and 4 days subsequently, Meriwether Lewis penned one of his longest and most meticulous descriptions of any small mammal.

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    The Corps' journalists, in their accounts of new species of mammals they encountered on the expedition, would occasionally telephone call to listen comparable features of domestic canids whenever it was appropriate—in terms of their sizes, morphology, and "notes" or barks.

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    While constructing Fort Clatsop, Clark recorded ii pregnant transactions: "The Indians left u.s. to day after brackfast, haveing Sold united states two of the robes of a Small animal for which I intend makeing a Capot."

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    The anecdotes nigh their experiences with grizzly bears which the members of the Corps of Discovery brought habitation were gory enough to guarantee that they would be passed along. What are the legends? What are facts?

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    On xiv August 1805, Meriwether Lewis commented on the Shoshones' herds: "Most of them are fine horses…. I saw several with Spanish brands on them, and some mules which they informed me that they had also obtained from the Spaniards."

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    Private Whitehouse and Sergeant Gass recorded that passing Indians told of a whale washed aground south forth today'south Oregon coast. Several days later, Clark set out with twelve men in 2 canoes to trade for every bit much blubber equally their pocket-size amount of merchandise would allow.

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    No doubt Lewis was preoccupied with the preservation process, for his entry was shorter. "It is a carniverous anamal . . . . it's heart are small-scale blackness and piercing."

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    Lewis wrote a clarification of the eastern gray squirrel, the get-go of his natural history observations, on 11 September 1803, twelve days subsequently he left Pittsburgh on his voyage downwards the Ohio.

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    To some extent, the Corps of Discovery used buffalo much equally the Indians did–for food, clothing, blankets, tents, saddle pads, and moccasins for both men and horses. With the coming of the American pioneers, the iconic animal'south downfall was swift.

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    The 100-year-long effort by scientists to determine where the bighorn belonged in the Linnaean arrangement and to become the animal pictured correctly.

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    Clark shot "a Prarie Wollf, most the Size of a gray play tricks bushey tail caput & ear like a wolf." Lewis wrote his description of what proved to be a new species on 5 May 1805, in northeastern Montana.

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    The captains saw their first white weasel at Fort Mandan on 9 November 1804. At Fort Clatsop on Christmas Day, 1805, Sacagawea gave Clark "2 Doz wesels tales."

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    The 1804-1805 Lewis and Clark journals provide the showtime reliable biological documentations of beaver (Castor Canadensis) for the Missouri and Columbia River corridors between St. Louis and the Pacific Bounding main.

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    Fort Clatsop's location was called in part considering, equally some Clatsop Indians had advised the captains, there were more elk on the southward side of the river than on the north. The Corps encountered their first elk in the western part of the nowadays state of Missouri.

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    Lewis got his outset close expect at that "large hare of America," when one of the Corps' ace hunters, Private John Shields, bagged the beginning specimen more than i,100 miles (by Clark'southward gauge) upwards the Missouri River.

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    Lewis referred to information technology as a "tyger cat." Fifty-fifty Carl Linneaus, the father of modern taxonomy, couldn't determine whether the wolverine belonged to the weasel family or the dog family unit.

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    This secretive, primitive little rodent, which somewhat resembles the woodchuck and the muskrat, belongs to the same mammalian order, Rodentia, as the beaver, Castor canadensis, but otherwise they have cipher in common.

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Discover More

  • The Lewis and Clark Trek: Day by 24-hour interval past Gary E. Moulton (University of Nebraska Press, 2018). The story in prose, 14 May 1804–23 September 1806.
  • The Lewis and Clark Journals: An American Epic of Discovery (abridged) by Gary E. Moulton (University of Nebraska Press, 2003). Selected journal excerpts, fourteen May 1804–23 September 1806.
  • The Lewis and Clark Journals. by Gary E. Moulton (University of Nebraska Printing, 1983–2001). The consummate story in 13 volumes.