KSC-2013-3056

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – Late at night at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, a raccoon walks near one of the waterways near Launch Complex 39. The center shares a boundary with the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge. The refuge encompasses 140,000 acres that are a habitat for more than 330 species of birds, 31 mammals, 117 fishes, and 65 amphibians and reptiles. It contains more than 1,000 known plant species. The marshes and open water of the refuge provide wintering areas for 23 species of migratory waterfowl, as well as a year-round home for great blue herons, great egrets, wood storks, cormorants, brown pelicans and other species of marsh and shore birds, and a variety of insects. Photo credit: NASA/Tony Gray