Prairie Dog Trio, Badlands National Park, South Da Poster

"Prairie Dog Trio, Badlands National Park, South Dakota" by Catherine Sherman. Roberts Prairie Dog Town provides a perfect view of the largest prairie-dog town in the accessible areas of Badlands National Park. Prairie dogs (genus Cynomys) are burrowing rodents native to the grasslands of North America. The black-tailed prairie dogs in the Badlands are one of five species of prairie dogs, which are a memebr of the squirrel family. Two other memebers of the squirrel family -- chipmunks and ground squirrels -- also live in the park. The park protects 242,756 acres (379.3 sq mi; 982.4 km2) of sharply eroded buttes and pinnacles, along with the largest undisturbed mixed grass prairie in the United States. The National Park Service manages the park, with the South Unit being co-managed with the Oglala Lakota tribe. Prairie dogs are named for their habitat and warning call, which sounds similar to a dog's bark. The name was in use at least as early as 1774. The 1804 journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition note that in September 1804, they "discovered a Village of an animal the French Call the Prairie Dog." Its genus, Cynomys, derives from the Greek for "dog mouse".