Need to identify invasive weeds at Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area? There's an app for that!

Despite its highly urbanized setting, Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area has a decidedly wild edginess, one that springs from its resident mountain lions.

If there was a trick to this week's Mystery Photo, it was that the buildings were not authentic. Rather, this the Western Town at Paramount Ranch in Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area.

Here's some good news as we near the end of 2008—you're part-owner of a spot described as "Paradise on earth, California style." Your on-site managers are working on a plan for the place, and you're welcome to give them your ideas.

Cape Cod National Seashore was established 47 years ago on August 7, 1961. To create the new park, the National Park Service had to “think outside the box” and employ greenlining and cooperative stewardship.

A mountain is “a natural elevation of the earth's surface having considerable mass, generally steep sides, a discernible peak, and a height greater than that of a hill.” This week’s quiz will see how much you know about mountains in the national parks. Answers are at the end. No peaking, please.

When people talk about national parks, the discussion usually revolves around vacations, not biodiversity. And yet, America's national parks are biodiversity sinks. How extensive those sinks are, well, that's a good question. It's one researchers are trying to answer through All Taxa Biodiversity Inventories.