In his description of the badger, which he called the "burrowing dog of the Prairie," Lewis deemed it clumsy and slow. "I have in two instances out run this animal and caught it," he wrote. But despite the short legs and stocky body that handicap it in a footrace, the badger can dig with lightning speed after a fleeing ground squirrel. Like many other prairie animals, badgers live in burrows and are losing habitat.

Not listed.