The Animals Of Texas

Section 01

The Biggest Wildlife List In The Lower 48

Texas records more bird species than any other state, more reptile species, more bat species, and among the most mammals. The reason is size combined with position: at roughly 268,000 square miles it spans desert, prairie, pine forest, coastal marsh, and subtropical thorn scrub, and its southern tip reaches far enough toward the tropics that Mexican and Caribbean species cross into the United States there and nowhere else.

The state divides into about ten ecoregions. The Piney Woods in the east belong to the Deep South. The Gulf coast holds barrier islands and the Laguna Madre, one of only a handful of hypersaline lagoons in the world. The Hill Country is limestone karst with springs and caves. The Panhandle is high plains. Trans-Pecos Texas is Chihuahuan Desert with sky island mountains, and the Rio Grande Valley in the far south is subtropical thorn forest.

Texas is also unusual in that roughly 95 percent of its land is privately owned, the highest share of any state. Conservation therefore runs through landowners rather than public land, and programmes that pay ranchers for habitat management do most of the work that federal land does elsewhere.

The state holds one wildlife spectacle that few places can match: Bracken Cave near San Antonio houses what is generally described as the largest bat colony in the world, with something on the order of 15 million Brazilian free-tailed bats emerging on summer evenings in a column visible on weather radar.

Section 02

Texas's Official State Animals

The Texas horned lizard is a more troubling symbol. Widely known as the horned toad, it eats harvester ants almost exclusively, and red imported fire ants have displaced harvester ants across much of the state. Combined with habitat loss and past collection for the pet trade, the lizard has disappeared from large parts of its Texas range and is now state threatened. Related: armadillo vs ocelot and armadillos.

Section 03

Habitats By Region, And Who Lives In Each

1. Piney Woods, east Texas

Loblolly, shortleaf, and remnant longleaf pine with bottomland hardwood along the rivers. Red-cockaded woodpecker, Louisiana black bear returning slowly from Louisiana and Arkansas, American alligator, and cottonmouth. The Big Thicket holds an unusual convergence of eastern, southern, and western species in a small area.

2. Gulf coast and the Laguna Madre

Barrier islands, salt marsh, and one of the world's few hypersaline lagoons behind Padre Island. Whooping cranes winter at Aransas, the only naturally occurring wild flock. Kemp's ridley sea turtles nest on Padre Island in the only significant US nesting population, and the state runs public hatchling releases. Also bottlenose dolphins, brown pelicans, and reddish egrets.

3. Blackland Prairie and Cross Timbers

Once tallgrass prairie on dark clay soils, now almost entirely farmed and urbanised along the Dallas and Austin corridor. Remnants hold Texas horned lizard, grassland birds, and prairie invertebrates.

4. Edwards Plateau and Hill Country

Limestone karst with springs, caves, and juniper-oak woodland. Golden-cheeked warbler nests only in Texas and only in mature juniper-oak, making it one of the few birds that breeds exclusively within a single state. Black-capped vireo also breeds here. The caves hold blind salamanders and invertebrates found in single caverns, and the Edwards Aquifer springs hold the Texas blind salamander and fountain darter. See Texas Hill Country.

5. South Texas brush and the Rio Grande Valley

Thorn scrub and subtropical woodland where Mexican species reach the United States. Ocelots survive in two small populations totalling perhaps 60 to 100 animals, the only ones in the country. Also green jay, great kiskadee, plain chachalaca, ringed kingfisher, and a long list of birds found nowhere else in the US. See ocelot facts.

6. Trans-Pecos and Big Bend

Chihuahuan Desert with sky island ranges rising to conifer forest. Desert bighorn sheep restored by translocation, javelina, mountain lion, black bear recolonising from Mexico, Colima warbler which breeds in the US only in the Chisos Mountains, and greater roadrunner. See Big Bend National Park.

7. Panhandle and high plains

Shortgrass prairie, playa lakes, and canyons including Palo Duro. Lesser prairie-chicken, pronghorn, black-tailed prairie dog, and enormous playa waterfowl concentrations including sandhill cranes and snow geese.

Section 04

Mammals Of Texas

• White-tailed deer: Texas holds the largest white-tailed deer population of any state, in the millions, plus mule deer in the west.
• Nine-banded armadillo: the state small mammal, which reached Texas from Mexico in the 1800s and has spread north and east since. It gives birth to identical quadruplets from a single fertilised egg, and it is one of the few animals other than humans that can carry leprosy.
• Ocelot: perhaps 60 to 100 animals in two isolated South Texas populations, the only ocelots in the United States. Vehicle strikes and habitat loss are the main threats, and wildlife crossings are being built specifically for them.
• Mountain lion: present across west and south Texas with no statewide harvest regulation for much of the state's history, unusual among western states.
• Black bear: recolonising the Trans-Pecos from Mexico and east Texas from Louisiana and Arkansas.
• Javelina, bobcat, coyote, ringtail, gray and swift and kit fox, badger, beaver, river otter: all present. Coyotes in south Texas hybridised historically with red wolves before that species was taken into captivity.
• Pronghorn and desert bighorn: both restored by translocation after severe declines, with bighorn returned to west Texas ranges where they had been eliminated.
• Bats: 32 species, the most of any state. Bracken Cave holds roughly 15 million Brazilian free-tailed bats, generally described as the largest bat colony in the world. Related: where bats live.
• Marine mammals: bottlenose dolphin along the coast, plus the critically endangered Rice's whale in the deeper Gulf of Mexico and occasional manatees.

Gone: gray wolf, red wolf, grizzly bear, and jaguar. Red wolves survived longest in coastal Texas and Louisiana, and the last wild animals used to found the captive population came from there.

Section 05

Birds Of Texas

More than 650 species have been recorded, the highest total of any state, and roughly 75 percent of all species recorded in the United States.

• Whooping crane: the Aransas-Wood Buffalo flock, the only naturally occurring wild population, winters on the Texas coast. It fell to fewer than 20 birds in the 1940s and now numbers a few hundred, and its entire winter range is concentrated in a small coastal area, which makes it vulnerable to a single oil spill or hurricane.
• Rio Grande Valley specialties: green jay, great kiskadee, plain chachalaca, Altamira oriole, ringed and green kingfishers, and groove-billed ani all reach the US essentially only here, making the Valley a destination for birders nationwide.
• Texas endemics: golden-cheeked warbler nests only in Texas, in mature Ashe juniper and oak woodland on the Edwards Plateau, and its habitat is under heavy development pressure from Austin and San Antonio.
• Migration: the upper Texas coast receives trans-Gulf migrants in spring, and High Island is among the most famous fallout sites in North America. Hawk migration at Corpus Christi counts hundreds of thousands of broad-winged hawks each autumn.
• Attwater's prairie-chicken: a coastal subspecies reduced to a few dozen wild birds and sustained by captive breeding and release, among the most endangered birds in North America.

Section 06

Reptiles, Amphibians, And Fish

Texas has more reptile species than any other state, around 160, plus roughly 75 amphibians.

Snakes: about 76 species, of which around 15 are venomous depending on how subspecies are counted. These include western diamondback, timber, rock, blacktail, mottled rock, banded rock, prairie, western massasauga, desert massasauga, and pygmy rattlesnakes, plus copperhead, cottonmouth, and Texas coral snake.

Lizards and turtles: Texas horned lizard is the state reptile and state threatened. Also collared lizard, several whiptails including all-female species, the Gila monster reaching the far west, alligator snapping turtle, Texas tortoise in the south, and five sea turtle species offshore. See the seven sea turtle species.

Amphibians: the Edwards Aquifer holds several blind cave salamanders, including the Texas blind salamander, which is eyeless, translucent, and lives only in the aquifer beneath San Marcos. Also Houston toad, federally endangered and restricted to a small area of central Texas, and Couch's spadefoot in the deserts.

Fish: Guadalupe bass is the state fish and is endemic to central Texas rivers, threatened mainly by hybridisation with introduced smallmouth bass. The San Marcos and Comal springs hold the fountain darter and Texas wild rice, and their survival depends entirely on aquifer levels. Devils River minnow and several pupfish persist in isolated desert waters.

Section 07

Dangerous Animals In Texas

• Venomous snakes: around 15 kinds, more than any other state. Western diamondbacks cause the most serious bites, and copperheads the most bites overall. Related: parks with the most rattlesnakes.
• Africanized honeybees: Texas was the first US state reached by Africanized bees in 1990, and they are now established across much of it. Mass stinging incidents cause deaths most years, and stinging insects are the leading cause of animal-related fatalities.
• Fire ants: ubiquitous in the east and south, causing painful stings and displacing native insects.
• American alligator: across the eastern and coastal regions. Attacks are rare.
• Deer: vehicle collisions statewide, with Texas among the highest totals in the country simply because of the deer population size.
• Scorpions, black widow and brown recluse spiders: all present, with the striped bark scorpion common in homes.
• Sharks, stingrays, and jellyfish: stingray injuries in shallow Gulf surf are far more common than shark bites. Portuguese man o' war strand on Gulf beaches.
• Heat: worth stating plainly. Heat illness harms far more people in Texas than every animal combined.

Section 08

Endangered And Protected Species

Texas conservation runs almost entirely through private land, since roughly 95 percent of the state is privately owned. That makes voluntary landowner programmes, conservation easements, and safe harbour agreements the primary tools rather than public land management. The dominant pressures are groundwater depletion, particularly the Edwards and Ogallala aquifers on which endemic spring species depend absolutely; rapid urban growth along the Austin to San Antonio and Dallas corridors; brush clearing in South Texas that removed ocelot cover; fire ants displacing the harvester ants horned lizards eat; and border infrastructure fragmenting movement corridors.

Section 09

Where To See Wildlife In Texas

• Aransas National Wildlife Refuge: wintering whooping cranes from a tower or by boat tour, November through March.
• Congress Avenue Bridge, Austin: roughly 1.5 million bats emerging on summer evenings in the middle of a city.
• Bracken Cave, near San Antonio: the world's largest bat colony, viewed through Bat Conservation International member events.
• Santa Ana and Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley State Park: Mexican bird species found nowhere else in the US.
• High Island, upper Texas coast: spring trans-Gulf migrant fallouts in April.
• Big Bend National Park: desert bighorn, javelina, Colima warbler in the Chisos, and exceptional dark skies.
• Padre Island National Seashore: Kemp's ridley hatchling releases in summer, open to the public.
• Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge: ocelot habitat, though sightings are extremely rare, plus aplomado falcons.