The Greater Sage-grouse

Greater Sage-grouse
BLM

Greater Sage-grouse
Centrocercus urophasianus

Description: The largest grouse species in North America. Large chicken-like bird. Grayish in color. Belly black. Long tail, with spiky tail feathers.

Habitat: Inhabits open sagebrush plains.

Resources:

information from "All About Birds", Cornell Lab of Ornithology

Virtual Utah

Delicate Arch at Arches National Park, Utah
Image: Delicate Arch at Arches National Park, Utah
Photo Credit: Lisa Zolly, NBII Digital Image Library

Virtual Utah is brought to you by the Remote Sensing/GIS Lab at Utah State University.  Virtual Utah offers aerial imagery (photography) for most of the state from 1993/97, 2003, 2004 and 2006. With the Basic Viewer the user can pan and zoom to the location of interest, generate a map and save it as a .pdf file. The Advanced Viewer allows the user to overlay datasets and then change the opacity of the top layer.  Other geographic datasets include land cover, hillshade (shaded relief), elevation data, and other satellite images.

Utah

Picture of a Sego Lily (Calochortus nuttallii) bloom available at the USDA-NRCS PLANTS Database
Image: Sego Lily (Calochortus nuttallii)
Photo Credit: USDA-NRCS PLANTS Database

The southwestern state of Utah, nicknamed the "Beehive State," is bordered by Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, and Wyoming. It is a state known for its snowcapped Rocky Mountains, Great Salt Lake, Mojave desert, and rocky Colorado Plateau.

The State flower of Utah, the Sego lily ( Calochortus nuttallii ), is distributed throughout the State.

Water is an important resource for Utah's arid ecosystems. The major river basins of Utah, as described by the USGS National Water Information System, include the Colorado River Basin and the Great Basin.

  • To find out about animals and plants of the Southwest, many of which are distributed throughout Utah, visit the SWIN Animals and Plants of the Region page.
  • To find out more about regional issues such as wildlife disease, invasive species, fire, and water and drought, including links to state-specific resources, visit the SWIN Regional Themes page.
  • To find out about geospatial products, databases, and other information for Utah and the Southwest, visit the SWIN Live Maps and Data page.

Project Highlight

Sage grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus)
Sage grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus)
Credit: Karen Steenhof, USGS

NBII-Great Basin Information Project Photo Catalogue

The Great Basin Information Project provides consolidated and efficient access to information about the Great Basin and the Columbia Plateau Regions of eastern Washington and Oregon, southern Idaho, northern Nevada and Utah, and portions of northeastern California.  Three major plant communities grow in the Great Basin and Columbia Plateau: sagebrush, salt desert shrub, and pinyon-juniper woodlands.  The Great Basin and Columbia Plateau regions comprise a large area of the western United States, approximately 225,674 sq. miles in size.

About the Colorado Plateau

Colorado Plateau [Photo: US Bureau of Land Management]
Colorado Plateau
[Photo: US Bureau of Land Management]

The Colorado Plateau is a physiographic region of the Southwest US, roughly centered on the "Four Corners" area of western Colorado, northwestern New Mexico, southeastern Utah, and northern Arizona. Characterized by canyonlands, painted deserts, red rock formations, and mountain peaks, this region has a unique geologic past and a diversity of plant and animal species.


Map of the Colorado Plateau [Image: USGS Southwest Biological Science Center]

IMAGE: Map of the Colorado Plateau [Image: USGS Southwest Biological Science Center]

Colorado Plateau Resources:

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