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The Endangered Species

Included on this site are endangered species, most of which are found in South Carolina. Some of the marine life migrates; therefore, they may not be seen frequently in or close to South Carolina.

Animals	Marine Life	Plants
Bald Eagle	Blue Whale	American Chaff Seed
Bog Turtle	Finback Whale	Black-Spored Quillwort
Carolina Heelsplitter	Green Sea Turtle	Bunched Arrowhead
Eastern Indigo	Guadalupe Fur Seal	Conby's Dropwort
Eastern Puma	Hawksbill Sea Turtle	Dwarf Flowered Heartleaf
Flatwoods Salamander	Hawaiian Monk Seal	Harperella
Indiana Bat	Humpback Whale	Little Amphianthus
Piping Plover	Kemp's Ridley Sea Turtle	Miccosukee Gooseberry
Red Cockaded Woodpecker	Leatherback Sea Turtle	Michaux's Sumac
Roseate Tern	Loggerhead Sea Turtle	Persistent Triliium
Wood Stork	Mediterranean Monk Seal	Pondberry
	Right Whale	Relict Trillium
	Sei Whale	Schweintz's Sunflower
	Shortnose Sturgeon	Seabeach Amaranth
	Sockeye Salmon	Small-Whorled Pogonia
	Sperm Whale	Smooth Coneflower
		Swamp Pink

Animals

Bald Eagle
(Haliaeetus leucocephalus)
Bald eagles are generally one foot in height and have a wingspan of seven feet. Males usually weigh eight to nine pounds, and females weigh around ten to fourteen pounds. Adults four to five years of age are identified by their white heads and tails, solid brown bodies, and large, curved, yellow bills. Juveniles, however, have blotchy white patches on their undersides and tails. Bald eagles generally live for up to thirty years in the wild, and longer in captivity. They live and nest near coastlines, rivers, lakes, wet prairies, and coastal pine lands, and their diets consist of fish, small mammals, waterfowl, wading birds, and carrion.

Bog Turtle
(Clemmys muhlenbergii)
The average adult size for Bog Turtles (also known as Muhlenberg's Turtles) is from three to three and a half inches, and they are generally considered to be the smallest native turtle in the United States. The carapace of the Bog Turtle is light brown to mahogany to black with a lighter center. The Bog Turtle's "trademark" is a large patch of orange, red, or yellow on the head, which often extends down into the neck and is sometimes split into two parts. The legs of the Bog Turtle are usually covered with red, orange, or yellow markings. Bog Turtles are often found in areas with large bodies of murky water, an abudance of grassy or mossy cover, lots of sunlight, and spring seepage.

Carolina Heelsplitter (Lasmigona decorata)
Little is known about the Carolina Heelsplitter other than it is an endangered freshwater clam in South Carolina.

Eastern Indigo
(Drymarchon corais couperi)
The Eastern Indigo is a large, glossy, blue-black non-poisonous snake which can reach lengths of up to nine feet. Eastern Indigos are solid colored, but occasionally have orange, pink, white, or red areas underneath the chin, which may extend to the throat and cheeks. The Eastern Indigo is sometimes confused with the similar Black Racer or the Black Pine Snake, but is much stockier than the slender Racer, which has a white chin patch, and the Black Pine Snake, which has no chin patch and keeled rather then smooth scales. Eastern Indigos are active during the day much of the year and prey on small mammals, lizards, birds, frogs, toads, and other snakes. They are immune the the venom of all other North American poisonous snakes and will readily eat them, like the Kingsnake. Eastern Indigos use a variety of habitats during the year, but are almost always associated with gopher tortoises and the sandy ridges they inhabit. Eastern Indigos often share the gopher tortoise's den during hot or cold weather. Eastern Indigo snakes are relatively docile and slow-moving, propbably contributing to their decline.

Eastern Puma
(Puma concolor)
The Eastern Puma is a large, long-tailed wildcat. Eastern Pumas are generally three to four feet long and their distinctively long tail, which is the same color as the puma's body and sometimes tipped in dark brown or black, can reach another two and a half to three feet. Their weight can range from 110 to 180 pounds for males, and eighty to 130 pounds for females. Eastern Pumas are generally twenty-five to thirty inches high at the shoulder; their bodies are long and slenderly built. Their fur color can range from a grayish brown to a tawny reddish brown. In general, pumas that are farther away from the equator tend to be larger and more grayish or tannish in color. The head of the puma is small in relation to the size of the body. Their ears are small and rounded, and darker colored on the back and tufted with light colored fur across the front. Their muzzles are a creamy white color and are framed in a deep, rich brown. The puma's eyes are large and rimmed with black. Pumas have long, powerful legs which allow them to jump extraordinary distances and large, heavily padded paws with retractable claws.

Flatwoods Salamander
(Ambystoma cingulatum)
The Flatwoods Salamanders have unique habitats: flat, low-lying longleaf or slash pine forests that lie between dried land upslope and wetlands. Autumn showers prompt migration to their wetland breeding sites, where females lay up to 160 eggs, singly, in small groups, under debris or on bare soil at the bottoms of basins; the larvae hatch three to five weeks later. The best time to see a Flatwoods Salamander is at night, when they come out for food. They are solitary creatures who live alone and spend most of the daylight hours in underground burrows or in cool, damp crevices under rocks or logs. They have fragile bodies and should be handled as little as possible.

Indiana Bat
(Myotis sodalis)
The Indiana Bat is a medium-sized animal; it has dull grey to brown fur and a pink underside, and greatly resembles its cousin the Brown Bat (Myotis lucifugus). Indiana Bats usually begin their migration to the caves in August. They will leave to feed through November and will then hibernate until spring. Often hundreds, even thousands, of bats hibernate together in a single cave or cave system. If a bat is woken up during its hibernation, it will not be able to go back to sleep and will then starve to death; this is the reason that Indiana Bats are endangered.

Piping Plover
(Charadrius melodus)
The Piping Plover is generally five and a half inches long and is a small shorbird. It has a short, stubby tail, pale gray or white underparts, a white collar, a dark bill, and orange legs. Sometimes Piping Plovers have thin black breast bands, orange bases to dark bills, black lines from eye to eye across the forehead, and gray crowns.

Red Cockaded Woodpecker
(Picoides borealis)
Red Cockaded Woodpeckers are generally 7.25 inches long. They are small, black-and-white woodpeckers with black capes and napes, white postocular spots, dark moustachial stripes down the sides of the neck, bold white cheeks and auriculars, white underparts streaked sparselywtih black around the sides of breasts and flanks, black backs barred with white, black wings spotted with white in wing coverts and flight feathers, black rumps, and black tails with white outer tail feathers barred with black. Adult male Red Cockaded Woodpeckers have small red spots at the rear margins of a white face.

Roseate Tern
(Sterna dougallii )
Roseate Terns are generally fifteen inches long and have a wingspan of thirty inches. The sexes are very similar, and they dive into water to catch prey. They are medium-sized terns with slender, pointed bills, very long, deeply forked tails, smoothly rounded heads without crests, pale underwings with somewhat dark tips to outermost primaries with inner primaries lacking a dark trailing edge, and pale gray mantles. Roseate Terns usually acquire their full adult plumage at or after three years of age. They are rarely observed during migration.

Wood Stork
(Myceteria americana)
Wood Storks are large water birds that stand two to four feet tall and weigh seven to ten pounds, with wingspans as wide as five and a half feet. They are mostly white, but have black tails and many black feathers under their wings. They have no feathers on their heads and necks, so the black skin underneath shows. Since there are no muscles attached to their voice boxes, they are very quiet birds; every now and then they will croak like a bullfrog or hiss like a snake. Wood Storks have long, skinny legs and long, curved beaks; they can glide for long periods of time on warm wind currents. Sometimes they dive and flip as the soar down from high in the sky. When they do flap their wings, they look awkward and clumsy. They cool themselves by urniating on their legs. They are the only storks native to North America.

Marine Life

Blue Whale
(Balaenoptera musculus)
The Blue Whale is the largest animal on the earth. It can grow up to thirty-three meters long and weigh 190 tons. The Blue Whale's throat can hold 1,000 tons or more of food and water when fully expanded. Blue Whales can eat over four tons of krill a day. The head of the Blue Whale forms up to a quarter of its total body length, and, compared to other rorquals, is very broad.

Finback Whale
(Balaenoptera physalus)
The Finback Whale is the second-largest animals on earth, and is among the fastest of the great whales, capable of speeds of up to twenty-three miles per hour. Its most unusual characteristic is the asymmetrical coloring of the lower jaw, which is white or creamy yellow on teh right side and mottled black on the left. Finback Whales seem to prefer temperate, arctic, and antarctic waters to tropical seas.

Green Sea Turtle
(Chelonia mydus)
The Green Sea Turtle rarely comes to land except to bask and sleep and to lay eggs. Males have slightly longer, narrower carapaces than females and enlarged curved claws on the front flippers. They are primarily herbivorous animals and have serrated jaw surfaces; sometimes they eat crustaceans and jellyfish. Green Sea Turtles prefer warm waters of tropical and subtropical areas near continental coasts and around islands.

Guadalupe Fur Seal
(Arctocephalus townsendi)
The Guadalupe Fur Seal is the rarest and only species of Arctocephalus found north of the equator.

Hawaiian Monk Seal
(Monachus schauinslandi)
Adult female Hawaiian Monk Seals usually grow to seven to eight feet and weigh 400 to 600 pounds, while adult male Hawaiian Monk Seals grow to around seven feet and weigh around 300 to 400 pounds. Adult seals have a brown coat; juveniles' coats are silver-gray on the back and sides and creamy white on the belly, chest, and throat; pups' coats are black and woolly at birth.

Hawksbill Sea Turtle
The Hawksbill Sea Turtle's beautiful carapace provides the best tortoiseshell, and is the reason for the endangered status of the species. The carapace is serrated at the back and has particularly thick, horny plates. The Hawksbill prefers coral reefs and rocky outcroppings in shallow coastal areas, and is the most tropical of all of the sea turtles. The Hawksbill's tapered head is an adaptation for searching out its main food sources, mollusks and crustaceans, in rocky crevices and reefs. Howksbill Sea Turtles usually lay about 150 eggs at a time.

Humpback Whale
(Megaptera novaeangliae)
Humpback Whales are some of the most energetic rorquals, and are known for their spectacular breaching, flipper slapping, and lobtailing. They are easily identified at close range by their knobbly heads and long flippers. No two Humpbacks are exactly alike. The tops of their heads are flattened and covered by many fleshy knobs, called tubercles. The lower jaw has a rounded protuberance near the tip and is covered with tubercles similar to those on the head.

Kemp's Ridley Sea Turtle (Lepidochelys kempii)
The Kemp's Ridley Sea Turtle is usually only found in the Gulf of Mexico. It likes shallow areas with sandy and/or muddy bottoms, which tend to have many crustaceans.

Leatherback Sea Turtle
(Dermochelys coriacea)
The Leatherback Sea Turtle's diet consists mainly of marine invertebrates, such as jellyfish. They are usually found in warmer waters. Leatherbacks are the world's largest sea turtles, with an average weight of 800 pounds and a maximum weight of 1,300 pounds. Leatherbacks have extremely long foreflippers, with a span of nine feet. Leatherback Sea Turtles are very oceanic, and only approach the coast during breeding time. Leatherbacks usually lay about eighty to 100 eggs at a time.

Loggerhead Sea Turtle
(Caretta caretta)
Loggerhead Sea Turtles are found mostly in the temperate and tropical areas of the Pacific, Indian, and Atlantic Oceans, and prefer coastal bays but are sometimes found in the open ocean. Loggerheads are large turtles with long, slightly tapering carapaces and wide, chunky heads housing powerful jaws. Loggerheads' diets consist of crabs, mollusks, sponges, jellyfish and aquatic plants. Loggerheads usually lay about 100 eggs at a time.

Mediterranean Monk Seal
(Monachus monachus)
An average male Mediterranean Monk Seals is 2.4 meters in length and weighs approximately 315 kilograms. Females, the smaller sex, weigh approximately 300 kilograms. Adult Mediterranean Monk Seals are generally brown or grey on their backs, and are lighter colored on their bellies; white patches are common on the undersides of their bellies. Older males tend to be black. Mediterranean Monk Seals may live for twenty to thirty years in the wild. The Mediterranean Monk Seal is listed as critically endangered.

Right Whale
(Balaena glacialis)
Right Whales are suprisingly acrobatic and may be seen waving their flippers above the surface, breaching, lobtailing, and flipper slapping. Right Whales' baleen plates are nerrow, and up to two meters long. Right Whales migrate to warmer waters to give birth and mate.

Sei Whale
(Balaenoptera borealis)
The Sei Whale closely resemble the Bryde's Whale in both size and appearance, and from a distance it is almost impossible to tell the two apart. Sei Whales, both male and female, grow to be thirty-six to fifty-one feet long and weigh twenty to thirty tons. The length of the Sei Whale's head forms up to a quarter of their total body length. Compared to other rorquals, the Sei Whale is slender, and has a slightly arched forhead. The Sei Whale's baleen is gray to black and has a white fringe near the tip of the snout.

Shortnose Sturgeon
(Acipenser brevirostrum)
The Shortnose Sturgeon is a primitive fish with rows of bony, armor-like plates on their sides and a skeleton of cartilage, rather than bone. Shortnose Sturgeons are bottom feeders, and rarely grow longer than three feet. Shortnose Sturgeons rarely migrate far into the ocean from their native rivers.

Sockeye Salmon
(Oncorhynchus nerka)
The Sockeye Salmon is often referred to as "Red" or "Blueback" Salmon, and occurs in the North Pacific and Artic oceans and associated freshwater systems. They can be distinguished from Chinook, Coho and Pink Salmon by their lack of large, black spots and from Chum Salmon by the number and shape of gill rakers on the first gill arch. Sockeye Salmon have twenty-eight to forty long, slender, rough, or serrated closely-set rakers on the first arch. Both breeding sexes of Sockeye Salmon turn brilliant to dark red on their backs and sides, pale to olive-green on their heads and uppper jaws, and white on the lower jaws. They usually weigh four to eight pounds after one to four years.

Sperm Whale
(Physter macrocephalus)
Male Sperm Whales reach lengths of 15.8 to 18.5 meters long and weights of forty-five to seventy tons, while females are generally 10.9 to twelve meters in length and fifteen to twenty tons in weight. The Sperm Whale has a large, distinctive, square head which is at least one-third of its total body length and often projects up to five feet beyond its lower jaw. The Sperm Whale's diet consists mainly of squids, octopi, and fish.

Plants

Americian Chaff Seed
(Schwalbea americana)
Symbol: SCAM
Group: Dicot
Family: Scrophulariaceae
Growth Habit: Forb/herb
Duration: Perennial
U.S. Nativity: Native

Black-Spored Quillwort
(Isoetes melanospora)
Symbol: ISME3
Group: Quillwort
Family: Isoetaceae
Growth Habit: Graminoid
Duration: Perennial
U.S. Nativity: Native

Bunched Arrowhead
(Sagittaria fasciculata)
Symbol: SAFA5
Group: Monocot
Family: Alismataceae
Growth Habit: Forb/herb
Duration: Perennial
U.S. Nativity; Native

Conby's Dropwort
(Oxypolis canbyi)
Symbol: OXCA2
Group: Dicot
Family: Apiaceae
Growth Habit: Forb/herb
Duration: Perennial
U.S. Nativity: Native

Dwarf Flowered Heartleaf
(Hexastylis naniflora)
Symbol: HENA3
Group: Dicot
Family: Aristolochiaceae
Growth Habit: Forb/herb
Duration: Perennial
U.S. Nativity: Native

Harperella
(Ptilimnium nodosum)
Symbol: PTNO
Group: Dicot
Family: Apiaceae
Growth Habit: Forb/herb
Duration: Annual
U.S. Nativity: Native

Little Amphianthus
(Amphianthus pusillus)
Symbol: AMPU7
Group: Dicot
Family: Scrophulariaceae
Growth Habit: Forb/herb
Duration: Annual
U.S. Nativity: Native

Miccosukee Gooseberry
(Ribes echinellum)
Symbol: RIEC
Group: Dicot
Family:Grossulariaceae
Growth Habit:Shrub
Duration: Perennial
U.S. Nativity: Native

Michaux's Sumac
(Rhus michauxii)
Symbol: RHMI11
Group: Dicot
Family: Anacardiaceae
Growth Habit: Subshrub, Shrub
Duration: Perennial
U.S. Nativity: Native

Persistent Trillium
(Trillium persistens)
Symbol: TRPE7
Group: Monocot
Family: Liliaceae
Growth Habit: Forb/herb
Duration: Perennial
U.S. Nativity: Native

Pondberry
(Lindera melissifolia)
Symbol: LIME7
Group: Dicot
Family: Lauraceae
Growth Habit: Tree, Shrub
Duration: Perennial
U.S. Nativity: Native

Relict Trillium
(Trillium reliquum)
Symbol: TRRE6
Group: Monocot
Family: Liliaceae
Growth Habit: Forb/herb
Duration:Perennial
U.S. Nativity: Native

Schweintz's Sunflower
(Helianthus schweinitzii)
Symbol: HESC3
Group: Dicot
Family: Asteraceae
Growth Habit: Forb/herb
Duration: Perennial
U.S. Nativity: Native

Seabeach Amaranth
(Amaranthus pumilus)
Symbol: AMPU2
Group: Dicot
Family: Amaranthaceae
Growth Habit: Forb/herb
Duration: Annual
U.S. Nativity: Native

Small-Whorled Pogonia
(Isotria medeoloides)
Symbol: ISME2
Group: Monocot
Family: Orchidaceae
Growth Habit: Forb/herb
Duration: Perennial
U.S. Nativity: Native

Smooth Coneflower
(Echinacea laevigata)
Symbol: ECLA
Group: Dicot
Family: Asteraceae
Growth Habit: Forb/herb
Duration: Perennial
U.S. Nativity: Native

Swamp Pink (Helinoias bullata)
Symbol: HEBU
Group: Monocot
Family: Liliaceae
Growth Habit: Forb/herb
Duration: Perennial
U.S. Nativity: Native