What Especially Ferocious Animal Did The Explorers Encounter

Meriwether Lewis and William Clark are known as trailblazing explorers of the American West, not pioneering scientists. But during their viii,000-mile journey from Missouri to the Pacific Bounding main and back between 1804-1806, Lewis and Clark discovered 122 animal species, including iconic American animals similar the grizzly bear, coyote, prairie canis familiaris and bighorn sheep.

When President Thomas Jefferson offset charged his assistant Lewis with the mission of finding a passable river route to the Pacific, he included an assignment to "[observe] the animals of the country more often than not, & especially those not known in the U.S. the remains and accounts of any which may [exist] accounted rare or extinct."

Jefferson was especially enticed by fossils recovered of mastodons and a type of giant state sloth he dubbed the megalonyx ("big claw"). Unsure of what species the men would encounter in the wilds across Missouri, Lewis took crash courses in botany, zoology and specimen collection and preservation from the best scientific minds in Philadelphia.

Clark Describes a 'Village of Small Animals'

Lewis and Clark came upon prairie dogs in 1804 and described them as "little animals" that "make a whistling noise." — Lewis and Clark came upon prairie dogs in 1804 and described them every bit "little animals" that "brand a whistling noise."

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I of the most remarkable periods of the expedition (zoologically speaking) occurred between September 4 and September 24, 1804 during a 263-mile trek from the Niobrara River in Nebraska to the Teton River in modern-twenty-four hours Pierre, South Dakota. In a span of but over two weeks, Lewis and Clark encountered four archetype Western animals for the first time: the prairie domestic dog, pronghorn, coyote and the jack rabbit.

READ More: 10 Fiddling-Known Facts Nigh the Lewis and Clark Expedition

In his September 7, 1804 journal entry, Clark describes a "Village of Small animals" discovered in Boyd County, Nebraska. The men found a sloping hillside containing "great numbers of holes on superlative of which these little animals Set erect brand a Whistling noise and whin alarmed Step into their pigsty."

Broken-hearted to capture a live specimen, the men tried earthworks down into the burrows, but after reaching a depth of six feet, they switched tactics and attempted to flush the critters out.

"They spent an entire solar day hauling buckets of water up from the Missouri River and dumping them down the holes," says Jay Buckley, a history professor at Brigham Young University and author of several books on Lewis and Clark, and Western exploration. "Eventually they flushed one out, put it in a cage and sent it to Jefferson. Incredibly, it made the trip live.

There was some disagreement over what to name the curious creatures. Lewis called them "barking squirrels" while Clark referred to them as "ground rats" or "burrowing squirrels." It was Sergeant John Ordway, an Ground forces volunteer, who outset chosen them prairie dogs.

Lewis Marvels at a 'Jackass Rabbit'

A Blacktail jackrabbit. Lewis noted the rabbit with remarkable ears could leap 18 to 20 feet in a single bound. — A Blacktail jackrabbit. Lewis noted the rabbit with remarkable ears could bound eighteen to 20 feet in a unmarried bound.

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On September 14, 1804, well-nigh Chamberlain, S Dakota, one of the men killed a large white hare whose long, donkey-similar ears inspired the proper noun "jackass rabbit," later on shortened to jack rabbit. In his journal, Lewis marveled at the jack rabbit's flexible ears, which the beast could "dilate and throw… forward, or contract and fold... dorsum at pleasance." He observed the jack rabbit could leap 18 to 20 feet in a single jump.

On the very aforementioned day near the oral fissure of Ball Creek in South Dakota, Clark shot a "Buck Goat" of an intriguing species of deer. In his journal, Lewis described the striking animal as having forked horns or "prongs" and its "brains of the back of his head." Consulting his eight-book A New and Complete Dictionary of Arts and Sciences, published in 1764 by W. Owen, Lewis ended that "he is more than like the Antilope or Gazelle of Africa than whatever other Species of Caprine animal."

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In fact, the pronghorn is neither caprine animal, antelope or deer, and belongs to its own family, Antilocapridae. The pronghorn is also the fastest 4-legged species in Northward America, reaching superlative sprinting speeds of 60 mph. Lewis and Clark stuffed ii pronghorn, one male and ane female, and shipped them back East to Jefferson.

The mournful wails and yelps of coyotes followed Lewis and Clark to the Pacific and back, but the team shot and identified the first of this new species on September 18, 1804 nearly Chamberlain, Southward Dakota, and Clark chosen it a "Prairie Wolff."

"I killed a Prairie Wolff, about the size of a grey play tricks, bushy tail caput and ears similar a Wolf, Some fur burrows in the ground and barks like a Small Dog," wrote Clark.

Grizzlies, Rattlesnakes, Bison Nearly Killed the Explorers

An illustration from Lewis and Clark's journal of the Corps of Discovery, 'American having struck a Bear but not killed him escapes into a tree.'

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Not all of Lewis and Clark's animal encounters were so calm and collected.

"One of my favorite moments is when Lewis is all alone at the Great Falls in Montana," says Buckley. "In a 24-hr period, he's well-nigh bitten past a rattlesnake, attacked by a wolverine, charged by a bison and eaten by a grizzly acquit. That night, in his periodical he says, 'The entire animal kingdom has conspired confronting me!'"

As for grizzlies, Lewis and Clark were skeptical at beginning of the native Mandan and Hidatsa's accounts of "white bears" weighing over ane,000 pounds, and the explorers scoffed at the state of war paint and other "supersticious rights" the Indians performed before setting out to hunt the mythical beasts.

Merely later, while traversing Montana, Lewis and Clark became believers. In his trademark creative spelling, Lewis described "a most tremendious looking anamal, and extreemly hard to kill yet he had 5 balls through his lungs and five others in various parts… and made the nearly tremendous roaring from the moment he was shot."

When Lewis had his close telephone call with a grizzly in Peachy Falls, he described a massive bear chasing him "open mouthed and full speed" into the river. With nowhere to run, Lewis spun around to confront the grizzly armed merely with his spear-headed "espontoon." To his great relief, the animal retreated.

"So it was, and I feelt myself not a little gratifyed that he had declined the combat," wrote Lewis.

Despite the great care taken by Lewis and Clark to collect specimens and include detailed descriptions and measurements of plants and animals in their journals, the men never achieved scientific fame in their lifetimes. After their triumphant return in 1806, Lewis planned to write a 3-volume account of their expedition with an entire volume dedicated "exclusively to scientific research, and principally to the natural history of those hitherto unknown regions."

But Lewis, overburdened in his new mail service equally governor of Louisiana, died suddenly in 1809, and when the expedition journals were finally published in 1814, the editors left out almost all of the zoological and scientific reports. Information technology wasn't until 1893 that a new edition of the journals was published by naturalist Elliott Coues, who correctly credited Lewis and Clark as scientific trailblazers every bit well as daring American explorers.