American Alligator (alligator mississippiensis)
Type: Reptile Average Lifespan: 30-5o years Length: 9.8-15 feet (male); 8.5 feet (female) Weight: 500 lbs. (male); 200 lbs. (female) Diet: Carnivore Conservation Status: Not Endangered Poetical Reference: My rubies in Algae Pond are like an alligator's adenoids" - Faberge (1969), Collected Poems p. 12 |
American Badger (taxidea taxis)
Type: Mammal Average Lifespan: 9-10 years Length: 24-30 inches Weight: 14-16 lbs (female); 19 lbs (male) Diet: Omnivore Conservation Status: Not Endangered Poetical Reference: "Among swollen oceanic beauties / tugs nuzzle and badger / in the shatter surface salt river harbor" - Buildings (1972), Collected Poems p. 87 |
North American Beaver (castor canadensis)
Type: Mammal Average Lifespan: 10-15 years Length: 2.4-3 feet Weight: 24-71 lbs Diet: Herbivore Conservation Status: Not Endangered Poetical Reference: "I like that, high on Apple Hill beside the pond where you watch the beaver and how he uses his tail to turn." - Awoke (1974), Collected Poems p. 204 |
Common Eastern Bumble Bee (bombus impatiens)
Type: Insect Average Lifespan: 28 days Length: 17-23mm (female); 12-18mm (male) Weight: 0.04-0.6 grams Diet: Herbivore Conservation Status: Not Endangered Poetical Reference: "Through it all the forsythia begins to bloom, brown and yellow and warm as lit gas jets, clinging like bees to the arching canes where starlings take cover from foraging cats." - Hymn to Life (1974), Collected Poems p. 219 |
Plains Bison (bison bison bison)
Type: Mammal Average Lifespan: 15 years Length: 9.3 feet (adult) Weight: 1,000-2200 lbs (male), 790-1200 lbs (female) Diet: Herbivore Conservation Status: Near Threatened Poetical Reference: "Not so the Indian above enjoining a bison: "Turn not away your head, O brown and curly." - Voyage autour de mes cartes postales (1977), Collected Poems p. 65 |
Blue jay (cyanocitta crostata)
Type: Bird Average Lifespan: 7 years Length: 8.7-12 inches Weight: 2.3-3.8 oz. Diet: Omnivore Conservation Status: Not Endangered Poetical Reference: "Happy Name Day, Blue Jay, staggering on slow-up wings into the shrunk into itself from cold forsythia snarl." - The Crystal Lithium (1972), Collected Poems p. 117 |
Cow/Cattle (bos taurus)
Type: Mammal Average Lifespan: 18-22 years Length: 8.5 feet (head to tail), 5 feet (foot to top) Weight: 1,600 lbs. Diet: Herbivore Conservation Status: Not Endangered Poetical Reference: "A table of green fields / on which to shoot pool (that boring game) / for cows to munch upon / where lambs may gambol / come spring." - A Table of Green Fields (1985), Collected Poems p. 337 |
American Crow (corvus brachyrhynchos)
Type: Bird Average Lifespan: 7-8 years Length: 16-21 inches Weight: 0.7-1.4 lbs. Diet: Omnivore Conservation Status: Not Endangered Poetical Reference: "A gull barks. A baby barks back. Three crows go by about their dark and iridescent business." - The Cenotaph (1972), Collected Poems p. 98 |
Fallow Deer (dama dama)
Type: Mammal Average Lifespan: 12-16 years Length: 138-179 cm (head to tail), 50-120 cm (foot to top) Weight: 40-63 kg (male), 31-44 kg (female) Diet: Herbivore Conservation Status: Not Endangered Poetical Reference: "I love their white scuts when they bound away, deer at horseplay." - The Walk (1974), Collected Poems p. 202 |
Common Fruit Fly (drosophila melanogaster)
Type: Insect Average Lifespan: 40-50 days Length: 0.125 in. Weight: 21.4 mg Diet: Omnivore Conservation Status: Not Endangered Poetical Reference: "The flies were something else. "These insects are too much: let's go back." - A blue towel (1974), Collected Poems p. 193 |
Domestic Goat (capra aegagrus hircus)
Type: Mammal Average Lifespan: 15-18 years Length: 16-23 inches Weight: 44-310 lbs. Diet: Herbivore Conservation Status: Vulnerable Poetical Reference: "And in the yellow grass are small wild crocuses from hills goats have cropped to barrenness." - Hymn to Life (1974), Collected Poems p. 214 |
American Herring Gull (larus smithsonianus)
Type: Bird Average Lifespan: 30 years Length: 60-66 cm (male), 56-62 cm (female) Weight: 1.05-1.25 kg (male), 0.8-0.98 kg (female) Diet: Omnivore Conservation Status: Not Endangered Poetical Reference: "A day like a gull passing with a slow flapping of wings in a kind of lope..." - Buried at Springs (1969), Collected Poems p. 43 |
European Hornet (vespa crabro)
Type: Insect Average Lifespan: 12-22 days (worker), ~ 1 year (queen) Length: Up to 2.2 inches Weight: ~0.5 grams Diet: Omnivore Conservation Status: Not Endangered Poetical Reference: "There is a hornet in the room and one of us will have to go out the window into the late August mid afternoon sun." - Buried at Springs (1969), Collected Poems p. 42 |
American Lobster (homarus americanus)
Type: Crustacean Average Lifespan: 31-54 years Length: 10-20 inches Weight: 1-4 lbs. Diet: Omnivore Conservation Status: Not Endangered Poetical Reference: "The rolling farmland of New York, or better still Maine and its coast and bays and islands, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, white clipboard / Houses with red geraniums inside sparkling windows, eating lobster, greedily." - The Morning of the Poem (1980), Collected Poems p. 278 |
White-Crowned Pigeon (patagioenas leucocephala)
Type: Bird Average Lifespan: Up to 14 years Length: 13.0-13.8 inches Weight: 7.8-9.9 oz. Diet: Omnivore Conservation Status: Near Threatened Poetical Reference: "O morning light on dirty windows sharpening the sepulchral church steeple whitened by pigeons..." - Buildings (1972), Collected Poems p. 87 |
American Robin (turdus migratorius)
Type: Bird Average Lifespan: 2 years Length: 9-11 inches Weight: 2.7 oz. Diet: Omnivore Conservation Status: Not Endangered Poetical Reference: "Here is its nest, in this old New England woodpile: three robin's-egg-blue robin's eggs: ergo: that lame bird was a big healthy robin though it dropped dead at your feet. That's just DDT." - Seeking (1969), Collected Poems p. 29 |
Grey Seal (halichoerus grypus)
Type: Mammal Average Lifespan: 15-25 years Length: 5.9-7.2 feet Weight: 330-485 lbs. Diet: Carnivore Conservation Status: Not Endangered Poetical Reference: "He went back to his woman, they dressed and returned to Bear Island over the broken gleaming water where seals snort and play." - The Morning of the Poem (1980), Collected Poems p. 288 |
Striped Skunk (mephitis mephitis)
Type: Mammal Average Lifespan: 3 years Length: 52-77 cm Weight: 4.0-10.0 lbs. Diet: Omnivore Conservation Status: Not Endangered Poetical Reference: "But the lake is black. Back of the trees where deer stoop and step and the independent skunk secretly waddles." - A Vermont Diary (1972), Collected Poems p. 110 |