Black-tailed prairie dogs at Roberts Prairie Dog Town, Badlands National Park, South Dakota, United States (© Greg Vaughn/Getty Images)

Across the stark stretches of South Dakota prairie, Badlands National Park is a landscape shaped by wind, water and time. Its layered rocks form ridges, buttes and gullies where erosion reveals fossils that trace millions of years of Earth's story. Between these sculpted formations lies a different kind of architecture—an underground world built by black-tailed prairie dogs. Beneath the grass, their tunnels link generations, shaping the land as surely as wind and rain do.