Mammals of the National Parks
Meet the 26 mammals we've written up, like the American bison, and the national parks where you'll find them.
-
Mammal American bison
Bison bison
The biggest land animal in North America, a shaggy grazer of the plains you can watch cross the road in Yellowstone.
-
Mammal American black bear
Ursus americanus
The bear you're most likely to meet east of the Rockies, a strong tree-climber that eats mostly plants and comes in black, brown, or cinnamon.
-
Mammal American pika
Ochotona princeps
A small round cousin of the rabbit that lives in mountain rock piles at Rocky Mountain, Mount Rainier, and North Cascades, and never sleeps through winter.
-
Mammal Bighorn sheep
Ovis canadensis
A wild sheep of cliffs and canyons, where rams carry heavy curled horns and both sexes cross steep rock other animals can't.
-
Mammal Black-tailed jackrabbit
Lepus californicus
A big-eared hare of Joshua Tree and Lava Beds that dumps body heat through its ears and outruns coyotes in zigzags at 40 miles an hour.
-
Mammal Bobcat
Lynx rufus
A small wildcat about twice the size of a house cat, common but rarely seen, that can bring down prey many times its own weight.
-
Mammal Cascade red fox
Vulpes vulpes cascadensis
A rare, high-elevation red fox subspecies found almost nowhere but Mount Rainier's subalpine meadows, in red, black, or mixed cross-colored fur.
-
Mammal Columbian black-tailed deer
Odocoileus hemionus columbianus
The coastal rainforest subspecies of mule deer, common on foggy meadow edges from Olympic to Redwood, easy to tell apart by its all-black tail.
-
Mammal Coyote
Canis latrans
The wild dog you're most likely to hear at a national park — a coyote, at home in the desert, the mountains, and the edges of towns.
-
Mammal Desert kangaroo rat
Dipodomys deserti
A sand-dune rodent of Joshua Tree that never drinks water and dodges a striking sidewinder with a midair kick.
-
Mammal Douglas squirrel
Tamiasciurus douglasii
A small, loud tree squirrel of West Coast conifer forests, known for cutting green cones by the hundred and scolding every hiker who walks under its tree.
-
Mammal Elk
Cervus canadensis
A large deer of mountain meadows whose bulls grow branching antlers and, each fall, bugle a high whistling call across the valley.
-
Mammal Gray wolf
Canis lupus
The biggest wild dog in North America, a pack hunter you might hear howling at dawn in Yellowstone, Denali, or Isle Royale.
-
Mammal Grizzly bear
Ursus arctos horribilis
A big brown bear of the northern Rockies and Alaska, marked by a hump of muscle over its shoulders and long digging claws.
-
Mammal Hoary marmot
Marmota caligata
The big silver-gray ground squirrel of the high meadows at Mount Rainier, famous for the sharp whistle it gives when danger is near.
-
Mammal Moose
Alces alces
The largest deer in the world, a long-legged giant you might see wading in ponds at Grand Teton, Isle Royale, Denali, or Rocky Mountain.
-
Mammal Mountain goat
Oreamnos americanus
A white, shaggy climber with black horns that lives on the steepest crags and pumice fields high on Mount Rainier, where almost nothing else can walk.
-
Mammal Mule deer
Odocoileus hemionus
A western deer named for its big mule-like ears, common along canyon rims and desert washes in Grand Canyon, Zion, Yosemite, and Saguaro.
-
Mammal Northern flying squirrel
Glaucomys sabrinus
A nocturnal glider of old-growth conifer forests that eats mostly underground fungus and, under a UV light, glows bubblegum pink.
-
Mammal Pacific marten
Martes caurina
A tree-climbing weasel relative of the old-growth canopy, whose coastal population was feared extinct for 50 years before a trail camera caught one in 1996.
-
Mammal Pronghorn
Antilocapra americana
North America's fastest land mammal, seen in the grasslands at the north end of Lava Beds, built to outrun a predator that went extinct 12,000 years ago.
-
Mammal Sea otter
Enhydra lutris
The heaviest weasel-family animal alive, floating on its back in Olympic's coastal kelp beds with no blubber at all, just the densest fur of any mammal.
-
Mammal Snowshoe hare
Lepus americanus
A forest hare whose coat flips from brown to white on a clock set by daylight, not by snow, and whose oversized feet work like actual snowshoes.
-
Mammal Townsend's big-eared bat
Corynorhinus townsendii
A soft brown bat with enormous curling ears that roosts in the cool lava-tube caves of Lava Beds and hunts moths in the dark.
-
Mammal Wolverine
Gulo gulo
The largest weasel-family member, so rare in Washington that a 2020 den at Mount Rainier was its first confirmed wolverine family in over a century.
-
Mammal Yellow-bellied marmot
Marmota flaviventris
A chubby, whistling ground squirrel that suns itself on high-country rocks at Rocky Mountain and Yosemite, and sleeps away most of the year.