BLACK-TAILED PRAIRIE DOG

It's Wide Wednesday and the Challenge is "Skyline."  When I think of skylines, Chicago, New York...places like that come to mind.  I live a LONG WAY from such places and the skyline around here involves trees, and farm silos not massive buildings.
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So....it's back to the zoo and a WIDE Black-tailed Prairie Dog (Cynomys ludovicianus) a.k.a. Sod Poodle .....he's fattening up for his winter's fast and it's clear this one hasn't missed too many meals.
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They normally live west of the Mississippi River.  This family of sod poodles lives at the zoo in Milwaukee but there's still a large family unit of them which is how they live in the wild environment.  Clearly, it's a rodent and possesses all those typical rodent characteristics.....except the colonies of this particular rodent can cover exceptionally large areas some being measured in square miles.
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Yes, I know the tail is hardly black.....wrong time of year.  The tail tip is black black...ish in the Springtime.
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This one is waving to all the tourists.  If you buy that, I have other things you might be interested in purchasing.  He's stretching, actually....it gets cramped underground. 
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Best viewed in Large.