Animals & Plants of Great Basin National Park
The 26 animals, plants, and fungi you can find at Great Basin National Park, with sizes, diets, and whether you should worry. See the full park guide at Great Basin National Park.
Great Basin climbs from sagebrush desert to the top of Wheeler Peak, and some of its oldest living things grow near treeline: Great Basin bristlecone pines. Mule deer and elk use the middle slopes, yellow-bellied marmots live in the high rock piles, and golden eagles and red-tailed hawks hunt the open country below. Townsend's big-eared bats roost in the park's caves.
Common questions
Which Great Basin animals need the most room?
At Great Basin National Park, give space to Elk, Coyote, and Mule deer. Elk: Elk look calm but they are large and wild. Coyote: Coyotes almost always run from people. Mule deer: Mule deer look calm and tame, but they are wild animals with sharp hooves, and bucks have antlers in fall. (per NPS species pages).
What do the Great Basin animals eat?
At Great Basin National Park, the most interesting eaters are Bald eagle, Golden eagle, Clark's nutcracker, and Elk. Bald eagle eats fish, ducks, gulls, small mammals, carrion. Golden eagle eats rabbits, hares, ground squirrels, marmots, ptarmigan. Clark's nutcracker eats pine seeds, whitebark pine seeds, insects, berries, small animals. Elk eats grasses, forbs, shrubs, tree bark in winter. (per NPS species pages).
Which Great Basin species has the strangest true fact?
The strangest true thing about Great Basin National Park: Elk: Only the bulls grow antlers, and they grow fast, up to an inch a day, then drop off each winter and start over in spring. Coyote: A coyote's yip-howl can sound like a whole pack when it's only one or two animals — the sound bounces and doubles. (per NPS species pages).
Anything here that bites?
Keep away
Bites if handled
- Bald eagle: A bald eagle will not come after you.
- Black-tailed jackrabbit: Harmless.
- Golden eagle: A golden eagle will not come after a person.
- Great horned owl: This owl hunts small animals at night and will not come after you.
- Red-tailed hawk: None.
- Sagebrush lizard: This lizard has no venom, and its main defense is running.
- Townsend's big-eared bat: Bats are not out to hurt you, and they are not 'flying mice' or blind.
- Western fence lizard: It has no venom.
- Wild turkey: A turkey will walk away from you long before you get close, and the only real trouble comes from feeding one.
- Yellow-bellied marmot: Marmots are not dangerous, but they are wild and can bite if you corner or try to grab one.
Everything else on this page is harmless. What each group means.
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Bird American dipper
Cinclus mexicanus
A stream-gray songbird that walks along the bottom of cold mountain creeks to hunt, the only songbird in North America that does.
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Bird Bald eagle
Haliaeetus leucocephalus
The white-headed fish hawk that is the national bird of the United States, common along the lakes of Voyageurs and the coasts of Olympic and Katmai.
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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.
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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.
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Fish Brook trout
Salvelinus fontinalis
A small, wormy-patterned native fish with red spots ringed in blue, the only trout that truly belongs in the cold high streams of the Smokies and Shenandoah.
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Bird Clark's nutcracker
Nucifraga columbiana
A pale-gray, black-winged cousin of the crow that hides tens of thousands of pine seeds each fall and remembers where to find them again.
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Bird Common raven
Corvus corax
A big, glossy-black problem-solver that rolls and tumbles over the cliffs of Grand Canyon, Arches, and the desert parks, watching for its next meal.
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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.
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Plant Douglas-fir
Pseudotsuga menziesii
One of the tallest trees on Earth, not actually a true fir, whose cones carry little three-pointed flaps a Native story calls the tails and legs of hiding mice.
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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.
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Bird Golden eagle
Aquila chrysaetos
A dark brown eagle with golden neck feathers that hunts rabbits and hares across open country, nesting on cliffs in Denali, Death Valley, and Great Basin.
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Plant Great Basin bristlecone pine
Pinus longaeva
The oldest known single living tree on Earth, a twisted, high-mountain pine that grows in the thin, cold air of Great Basin National Park.
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Bird Great horned owl
Bubo virginianus
A big night hunter with feathery "horns" and a deep hoot, found from the saguaro desert to the Everglades, hunting after dark on silent wings.
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Plant Indian paintbrush
Castilleja miniata
A scarlet mountain wildflower that steals water and food from its neighbors' roots, and whose bright color comes from leaves, not petals.
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Bird Killdeer
Charadrius vociferus
A shorebird that lives nowhere near a shore. At Badlands we never saw one. We heard it call its own name across the campground.
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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.
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Plant Ponderosa pine
Pinus ponderosa
A tall western pine whose sun-warmed bark smells like butterscotch and vanilla, and which drops its low branches so ground fire can pass safely beneath it.
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Plant Quaking aspen
Populus tremuloides
A white-barked mountain tree whose flat-stemmed leaves shiver in the lightest breeze, turning whole hillsides gold each fall.
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Bird Red-tailed hawk
Buteo jamaicensis
The hawk most often recorded in Yellowstone. We watched a hawk take a pika near the Roosevelt cabins and could not tell you which hawk it was.
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Bird Rufous hummingbird
Selasphorus rufus
A copper-orange hummingbird that flies farther, relative to its size, than almost any other bird on Earth, from Mexico to Alaska and back every year.
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Reptile Sagebrush lizard
Sceloporus graciosus
A small, slender, high-country lizard, the fence lizard's cousin, whose males flash blue belly and throat patches in a push-up display.
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Bird Steller's jay
Cyanocitta stelleri
A deep-blue mountain jay with a black crest and a loud voice, the campground bird that will eye your sandwich at Yosemite, Sequoia, and Crater Lake.
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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.
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Reptile Western fence lizard
Sceloporus occidentalis
The blue-bellied lizard of West Coast rock walls and fence rails, whose blood carries a protein that kills the Lyme disease bacterium inside a feeding tick.
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Bird Wild turkey
Meleagris gallopavo
A forest bird in a park with almost no forest. Badlands turkeys hold to the wooded draws, because a turkey needs a tree to sleep in.
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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.