What Animal Did Lewis Describe On September 7, 1804 And How Did They Attempt To Catch One

Meriwether Lewis and William Clark are known as trailblazing explorers of the American West, not pioneering scientists. Simply during their 8,000-mile journey from Missouri to the Pacific Body of water and back betwixt 1804-1806, Lewis and Clark discovered 122 animal species, including iconic American animals like the grizzly conduct, coyote, prairie dog and bighorn sheep.

When President Thomas Jefferson first charged his assistant Lewis with the mission of finding a passable river route to the Pacific, he included an consignment to "[discover] the animals of the country generally, & especially those not known in the U.S. the remains and accounts of any which may [be] deemed rare or extinct."

Jefferson was particularly enticed by fossils recovered of mastodons and a blazon of behemothic land sloth he dubbed the megalonyx ("big claw"). Unsure of what species the men would see in the wilds beyond 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 as "niggling animals" that "make a whistling noise."

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Ane of the most remarkable periods of the expedition (zoologically speaking) occurred between September iv and September 24, 1804 during a 263-mile trek from the Niobrara River in Nebraska to the Teton River in modernistic-day Pierre, South Dakota. In a span of just over 2 weeks, Lewis and Clark encountered four classic Western animals for the outset fourth dimension: the prairie dog, pronghorn, coyote and the jack rabbit.

READ MORE: 10 Little-Known Facts About the Lewis and Clark Trek

In his September vii, 1804 periodical 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 top of which these petty animals Ready erect make a Whistling noise and whin alarmed Stride into their hole."

Anxious to capture a live specimen, the men tried digging downwards into the burrows, merely later on 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 writer of several books on Lewis and Clark, and Western exploration. "Eventually they flushed one out, put it in a muzzle and sent it to Jefferson. Incredibly, information technology made the trip alive.

There was some disagreement over what to proper name the curious creatures. Lewis called them "barking squirrels" while Clark referred to them as "ground rats" or "burrowing squirrels." Information technology was Sergeant John Ordway, an Ground forces volunteer, who first called 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.

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On September 14, 1804, near Chamberlain, S Dakota, one of the men killed a big white hare whose long, donkey-like ears inspired the proper noun "jackass rabbit," afterwards shortened to jack rabbit. In his journal, Lewis marveled at the jack rabbit's flexible ears, which the animal could "amplify and throw… frontward, or contract and fold... back at pleasure." He observed the jack rabbit could leap 18 to twenty feet in a single bound.

On the very aforementioned day most the mouth of Brawl Creek in South Dakota, Clark shot a "Buck Goat" of an intriguing species of deer. In his periodical, Lewis described the striking animal equally having forked horns or "prongs" and its "brains of the back of his head." Consulting his viii-volume A New and Complete Dictionary of Arts and Sciences, published in 1764 by Westward. Owen, Lewis concluded that "he is more like the Antilope or Gazelle of Africa than whatsoever other Species of Caprine animal."

Whorl to Keep

In fact, the pronghorn is neither goat, antelope or deer, and belongs to its own family, Antilocapridae. The pronghorn is also the fastest four-legged species in N America, reaching top sprinting speeds of lx mph. Lewis and Clark stuffed 2 pronghorn, one male and one female person, and shipped them dorsum East to Jefferson.

The mournful wails and yelps of coyotes followed Lewis and Clark to the Pacific and back, but the squad shot and identified the outset of this new species on September xviii, 1804 nearly Chamberlain, South Dakota, and Clark called information technology a "Prairie Wolff."

"I killed a Prairie Wolff, about the size of a gray pull a fast one on, bushy tail head and ears like a Wolf, Some fur burrows in the basis and barks like a Minor 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.' — An analogy from Lewis and Clark's journal of the Corps of Discovery, 'American having struck a Carry merely not killed him escapes into a tree.'

Everett Collection

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

"Ane of my favorite moments is when Lewis is all lonely at the Neat Falls in Montana," says Buckley. "In a 24-hour catamenia, he'southward nigh bitten by a rattlesnake, attacked by a wolverine, charged by a bison and eaten by a grizzly bear. That night, in his journal he says, 'The entire creature kingdom has conspired against me!'"

As for grizzlies, Lewis and Clark were skeptical at first of the native Mandan and Hidatsa's accounts of "white bears" weighing over 1,000 pounds, and the explorers scoffed at the war paint and other "supersticious rights" the Indians performed before setting out to chase the mythical beasts.

But afterwards, while traversing Montana, Lewis and Clark became believers. In his trademark creative spelling, Lewis described "a most tremendious looking anamal, and extreemly difficult to impale notwithstanding he had five balls through his lungs and five others in various parts… and made the most tremendous roaring from the moment he was shot."

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

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

Despite the neat intendance 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 render in 1806, Lewis planned to write a iii-volume account of their expedition with an entire book defended "exclusively to scientific research, and principally to the natural history of those hitherto unknown regions."

But Lewis, overburdened in his new post equally governor of Louisiana, died suddenly in 1809, and when the trek journals were finally published in 1814, the editors left out almost all of the zoological and scientific reports. It 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 as well as daring American explorers.