Wildlife

Four toes in front, five behind, long claws and a pebbled sole: how to identify porcupine tracks in snow, mud and sand, and tell them from beaver and raccoon.

Bellows, hisses, headslaps and hatchling chirps. What each alligator sound means, when in the year you hear it, and the four noises people mistake for a gator.

Black salamanders in the US are harmless to handle but several carry skin toxins. Identification by size, belly pattern and costal grooves, with the eight species people actually find.

What a praying mantis means when it visits, in Greek, Chinese, Japanese, San and Christian tradition, by color, in dreams, and what to do when you find one.

The northern leopard frog is harmless to handle, wears dark spots ringed in pale halos, and hunts in wet meadows far from water. Here is how to tell it from a pickerel frog.

What seeing a blue butterfly means as an omen and a sign of luck, how rare the sighting really is, and what Christian, Native American, Celtic and East Asian traditions say, with a table for every situation.

Most snakes live 10 to 25 years, and captives last two to three times longer than wild ones. Species by species numbers and the records.

No butterfly native to the US is solidly pink. The rosy maple moth, primrose moth and five more pink fliers, with wingspans, ranges and flight seasons.

An outdoor pen of 4 by 8 ft beats any tank. Substrate depth, humidity, safe plants and predator proofing for a box turtle habitat.

Seeing a scorpion is read as a warning to defend your boundaries. Here is what the animal means in Native American, Egyptian, biblical, Chinese and dream traditions, situation by situation.