the design team drew inspiration from "the world of dinosaurs" two-sheet issue of 1997. these sheets were panoramic in design with punched perforations on a gummed sheet. since the punched perforations would distract the visual continuity of the design, the team decided to go for the self-adhesive format with serpentine die cutting for the individual stamps. each sheet consisted of a large panoramic image of a u.s. geographical region, with the region's flora and fauna clearly visible. ten stamps were die cut on to the design, each composing one or more species indigenous to the depicted region. the rear of sheet had a brief descriptive text of the stamp images, accompanied with a graphic outline of the stamp images. the flora and fauna depicted were identified and labelled.