Animals and Plants

The Virginia Living Museum is home to thousands of animals found throughout Virginia including reptiles, mammals, birds and fish. With its rivers and waterfalls, mountains and sandy coast, Virginia has an array of wildlife ranging from the extremely rare red wolf to the aluminous moon jellyfish.  Virginia has over 10,000 species, boasting some of the nations greatest and most endangered wildlife including the shortnose sturgeon fish and hellbender, an amphibian that is rarely seen in the wild.

All plants used at the Virginia Living Museum are native to the state of Virginia. Exhibits representing the coastal, piedmont and mountain regions of the state are planted with species appropriate to those regions.

Over the last 400 years Virginia’s habitats have drastically changed. Once covered with old growth forest, wetlands and floodplains, Virginia’s environment has been replaced by dams, roads, fields and houses. Wetlands and floodplains have been filled in to make room for crops and neighborhoods. Because of the drastic change in habitat, the woods buffalo, timber wolf, red wolf, elk and other species have been eradicated. Virginia has 110 species on its Endangered and Threatened List including the loggerhead sea turtle, red wolf, shortnose sturgeon, hellbender, bald eagle and canebrake rattlesnake, all of which can be found at the Virginia Living Museum.

We can only imagine the wilderness that the first Jamestown colonists encountered in 1607. Hear the words of these colonists as they saw many of Virginia's animals and plants for the first time in our podcasts.