Such a link will occur after the common name and is an abbreviation of the site pointed to. There also may be additional links to images and data within the species accounts themselves. A limited number of pictures cannot characterize most species, and the images on these pages should be viewed as generalizations. Especial thanks then go to the Digital Library Project of the University of California, Berkeley, who has made numerous biological images available without charge to nonprofit organizations, asking only that credit be given to the photographer and the copyright holder. Please respect the intellectual rights of these entities and of our own writers and photographers by not utilizing any of the web-site's material except under the conditions given in our use guidelines .
Distribution maps record the approximate historical distribution of the animals.
Some species, such as the Gray Wolf, no longer occur throughout their historic ranges. Range maps are, in part, hypotheses. That is, the range limits are mapped according to the best educated guesses of the plotter, who may use a knowledge of physical geography and ecology to estimate where the true range ends. The small scale maps used here are generalizations mostly based on the work of others. Distribution maps have another characteristic often not appreciated by the novice.