State Symbols
- State bird: Western Meadowlark, Sturnella neglecta
- State fish: Northern pike, Esox lucius
- State horse: Nokota horse
- State flower: Wild Prairie Rose, Rosa arkansana
- State tree: American Elm, Ulmus americana
- State fossil: Teredo Petrified wood
- State grass: Western Wheatgrass, Pascopyrum smithii (Rydb.) A. Löve
- State nicknames: Roughrider State, Flickertail State, Peace Garden State, Sioux state.
- State mottos:
- (Great Seal of North Dakota) Liberty and Union, Now and Forever, One and Inseparable
- (Coat of Arms of North Dakota) Strength from the Soil
- (Latin Motto of North Dakota, effective August 1, 2011 "Serit ut alteri saeclo prosit" (One sows for the benefit of another age.)
- State slogan: Legendary
- State song: North Dakota Hymn
- State dance: Square Dance
- State fruit: Chokecherry
- State march: Flickertail March
- State beverage: Milk
- State art museum: North Dakota Museum of Art
- State license plate: see the different types over time
"The Flickertail State" is one of North Dakota's nicknames and is derived from Richardson's Ground Squirrel (Spermophilus richardsonii), a very common animal in the region. The ground squirrel constantly flicks its tail in a distinctive manner. In 1953, legislation to make the ground squirrel the state emblem was voted down in the state legislature.
Read more about this topic: Economy Of North Dakota
Famous quotes containing the words state and/or symbols:
“Worn down by the hoofs of millions of half-wild Texas cattle driven along it to the railheads in Kansas, the trail was a bare, brown, dusty strip hundreds of miles long, lined with the bleaching bones of longhorns and cow ponies. Here and there a broken-down chuck wagon or a small mound marking the grave of some cowhand buried by his partners on the lone prairie gave evidence to the hardships of the journey.”
—For the State of Kansas, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“Eloquence must be grounded on the plainest narrative. Afterwards, it may warm itself until it exhales symbols of every kind and color, speaks only through the most poetic forms; but first and last, it must still be at bottom a biblical statement of fact.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (18031882)