Living Atlas
Where these species actually live
Each place below is described from a published source and shown at the scale that source uses. Publicly managed sites are shown as sites. Everything else is shown as a broad region, because an exact location can put an animal or plant in danger.
“A map can help a creature or it can hunt one. This one is drawn carefully.” — Pango, illustrated guide
The map
Places in the atlas
Select a place to centre the map on it, or simply read the entry. Each links to the species profiles it supports.
Texas Gulf Coast, United States
Publicly managed site — location published by the managing agency
Wintering grounds of the only self-sustaining wild flock of whooping cranes, on coastal marsh managed as a national wildlife refuge.
Source: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Nevada, United States
Publicly managed site — location published by the managing agency
A single water-filled limestone cavern that is the entire natural range of the Devils Hole pupfish. The site is fenced, monitored, and managed by the National Park Service.
Source: National Park Service
Mexico
Generalized region — not an exact species location
The only waters where the vaquita occurs. Entanglement in illegal gillnets set for totoaba is the central threat.
Source: NOAA Fisheries
United States and Canada, North Atlantic
Generalized region — not an exact species location
Feeding waters used seasonally by North Atlantic right whales, where vessel strikes and fishing-gear entanglement are the main causes of death.
Source: NOAA Fisheries
Central Texas, United States
Generalized region — not an exact species location
Ashe juniper and oak woodland, canyon country, and spring-fed streams supporting several species found nowhere else.
Central Texas, United States
Generalized region — not an exact species location
Constant-temperature springs rising from the Edwards Aquifer, supporting invertebrates, fish, and plants that cannot survive if flow stops.
Source: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
New Mexico, United States
Generalized region — not an exact species location
The remaining occupied reach of the Rio Grande silvery minnow, a fraction of its historic river range, dependent on spring flow.
Source: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Delaware and New Jersey, United States
Generalized region — not an exact species location
A migration stopover where rufa red knots refuel on horseshoe crab eggs partway between South America and the Arctic.
Source: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Java, Indonesia
Generalized region — not an exact species location
The last known home of the Javan rhinoceros. Monitoring detail is deliberately restricted by the agencies responsible for the population.
Source: IUCN Red List
Hawaiʻi, United States
Generalized region — not an exact species location
Where most Hawaiian monk seals live and pup, across remote atolls and low islands within a protected marine area.
Source: NOAA Fisheries
California, United States
Generalized region — not an exact species location
Spawning reach below Shasta Dam used by winter-run Chinook salmon, where cold-water release management decides whether eggs survive.
Source: NOAA Fisheries
Rwanda, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo
Generalized region — not an exact species location
Volcanic mountain forest holding part of the world's mountain gorilla population, protected by long-running ranger and veterinary programs.
Source: IUCN Red List
Florida, United States
Generalized region — not an exact species location
Swamp, pineland, and hammock supporting the last breeding population of Florida panthers, cut through by roads that cause most known deaths.
Source: National Park Service
Minnesota, Iowa, and the Dakotas, United States
Generalized region — not an exact species location
Scattered unploughed prairie remnants holding prairie-obligate butterflies that cannot recolonise once a remnant is lost. Individual sites are not named here.
Source: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Gulf of Mexico, United States waters
Generalized region — not an exact species location
Deep shelf-edge waters off the Florida panhandle where Rice's whale is consistently found. Vessel strikes, noise, and oil-spill risk are the central concerns.
Source: NOAA Fisheries
Peninsular Malaysia, Sumatra, and Borneo
Generalized region — not an exact species location
Lowland and hill forest across the Sunda region. Shown at continental scale on purpose: pangolin locations are never published in detail anywhere on this site.
Source: IUCN Red List
China, Viet Nam, Lao PDR, and Myanmar
Generalized region — not an exact species location
The broad range of the Chinese pangolin, deliberately generalized. Trafficking pressure makes any finer location harmful to publish.
Source: IUCN Red List
Southern and eastern Africa
Generalized region — not an exact species location
Dry savanna and woodland used by Temminck's ground pangolin, shown as a broad region for the same protective reason as the other pangolin entries.
Source: IUCN Red List
Texas Gulf Coast, United States
Publicly managed site — location published by the managing agency
The main United States nesting beach for Kemp's ridley sea turtles, with a long-running nest-detection and hatchling-release program run by the National Park Service.
Source: National Park Service
South Texas, United States
Publicly managed site — location published by the managing agency
Coastal thornscrub holding one of the two remaining United States ocelot populations. Road mortality is the leading known cause of death.
Source: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Central Texas, United States
Publicly managed site — location published by the managing agency
An isolated loblolly pine woodland on sandy soil, the core of the Houston toad's remaining range, recovering from severe wildfire.
Coastal prairie, Texas, United States
Publicly managed site — location published by the managing agency
Remnant coastal tallgrass prairie managed specifically for Attwater's prairie-chicken, supported by captive breeding and release.
Source: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Texas, United States
Publicly managed site — location published by the managing agency
A publicly known set of urban springs, fed by the Edwards Aquifer, that is the entire habitat of the Barton Springs salamander.
West Texas, United States
Publicly managed site — location published by the managing agency
Chihuahuan Desert mountains and canyons where agave flowering supports migrating Mexican long-nosed bats.
Source: National Park Service
North Carolina, United States
Publicly managed site — location published by the managing agency
Pocosin wetland and farmland where the world's only wild red wolf population lives, under an intensively managed recovery program.
Source: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
California, United States
Publicly managed site — location published by the managing agency
Rock spires and chaparral used as a release and monitoring site for California condors, where lead poisoning from ammunition remains the main threat.
Source: National Park Service
Maui, Hawaiʻi, United States
Publicly managed site — location published by the managing agency
High volcanic cinder slopes holding the Haleakalā silversword, a plant that grows for decades, flowers once, and dies.
Source: National Park Service
Florida, United States
Publicly managed site — location published by the managing agency
Shallow reef tract where elkhorn coral once formed the dominant shallow-water structure, now reduced by disease, bleaching, and storms.
Source: NOAA
Florida panhandle, United States
Publicly managed site — location published by the managing agency
One of the largest remaining fire-managed longleaf pine landscapes, holding red-cockaded woodpecker clusters that depend on old living pines.
Source: USDA Forest Service
Michoacán and State of Mexico, Mexico
Publicly managed site — location published by the managing agency
Oyamel fir forest where eastern monarchs from across North America overwinter in dense clusters on a small number of mountains.
Source: UNESCO World Heritage Centre
Michigan, United States
Generalized region — not an exact species location
Young jack pine stands, maintained by rotation and prescribed fire, where Kirtland's warbler nests on the ground beneath dense low branches.
Source: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Arizona and New Mexico, United States
Generalized region — not an exact species location
Mountain forest and grassland holding the reintroduced Mexican gray wolf population, managed jointly by federal and state agencies.
Source: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Washington, Oregon, and northern California, United States
Generalized region — not an exact species location
Structurally complex older conifer forest required by northern spotted owls, which are also under pressure from competing barred owls.
Source: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho, United States
Generalized region — not an exact species location
Subalpine ridges where whitebark pine, a keystone high-elevation tree, is declining from blister rust, beetles, and altered fire.
Source: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Montana and North Dakota, United States
Generalized region — not an exact species location
One of the few remaining free-flowing reaches long enough for pallid sturgeon eggs to develop before reaching still water.
Source: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Maine, United States
Generalized region — not an exact species location
The largest remaining United States river run of Atlantic salmon, reopened in part by dam removal and fish passage work.
Source: NOAA Fisheries
Western North Atlantic
Generalized region — not an exact species location
The spawning area of the European eel, thousands of kilometres from the rivers where the species spends most of its life.
Source: IUCN Red List
Sumatra, Indonesia
Generalized region — not an exact species location
Lowland and montane rainforest holding Sumatran orangutans, reduced mainly by clearance for plantations and roads.
Source: IUCN Red List
Primorsky Krai, Russia, and Jilin, China
Generalized region — not an exact species location
Temperate forest holding the world's remaining wild Amur leopards, protected across a linked network of reserves.
Source: IUCN Red List
Coclé and Panamá Oeste, Panama
Generalized region — not an exact species location
Cloud-forest streams that once held Panamanian golden frogs. The species survives in managed captive populations while chytrid fungus persists in the wild.
Source: IUCN Red List
Central Africa
Generalized region — not an exact species location
Continuous lowland rainforest where African forest elephants disperse the seeds of large-fruited trees. Poaching pressure means no finer detail is published here.
Source: IUCN Red List
Not yet mapped
These regions are missing on purpose. They are waiting on published information that can be summarized accurately and safely.
Southeastern freshwater mussel reaches
Texas fatmucket and winged mapleleaf river reaches — awaiting a current published description we can summarize at a safe, generalized scale.
Oceanic whitetip shark high seas range
The species is wide-ranging and pelagic; a single point would misrepresent it. Awaiting a published range description suited to a map.