Animals

The forests and prairies of Devils Tower National Monument provide habitat for mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, insects and fish. Look for deer beneath the shady forest canopy or visit the prairie dogs in their town along the river. Even the Tower offers a home for birds, small rodents and the occasional reptile.

 

Keep Wildlife Wild

All visitors have a responsibility to protect our national parks. This includes observing and behaving appropriately around our wild animals. Remember to keep our wildlife wild!

 

 

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Species Attribute Definitions

Definitions

Occurrence

Occurrence values are defined below. One or more Occurrence Tags may be associated with each Occurrence value.

Present: Species occurs in park; current, reliable evidence available.

Probably Present: High confidence species occurs in park but current, verified evidence needed.

Unconfirmed: Species is attributed to park but evidence is weak or absent.

Not In Park: Species is not known to occur in park.

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Occurrence Tags

Adjacent: Species is known to occur in areas near to or contiguous with park boundaries.

False Report: Species was reported to occur within the park, but current evidence indicates the report was based on misidentification, a taxonomic concept no longer accepted, or other similar problem of error or interpretation.

Historical: Species' historical occurrence in park is documented. Assigned based on judgment as opposed to determination based on age of the most recent evidence.

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Abundance

Abundant:

• Animals: May be seen daily, in suitable habitat and season, and counted in relatively large numbers.
• Plants: Large number of individuals; wide ecological amplitude or occurring in habitats covering a large portion of the park.

Common:

• Animals: May be seen daily, in suitable habitat and season, but not in large numbers.
• Plants: Large numbers of individuals predictably occurring in commonly encountered habitats but not those covering a large portion of the park.

Uncommon:

• Animals: Likely to be seen monthly in appropriate habitat and season. May be locally common.
• Plants: Few to moderate numbers of individuals; occurring either sporadically in commonly encountered habitats or in uncommon habitats.

Rare:

• Animals: Present, but usually seen only a few times each year.
• Plants: Few individuals, usually restricted to small areas of rare habitat.

Occasional:

• Animals: Occurs in the park at least once every few years, varying in numbers, but not necessarily every year.
• Plants: Abundance variable from year to year (e.g., desert plants).

Unknown: Abundance unknown

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Nativeness

Native: Species naturally occurs in park or region.

Non-native: Species occurs on park lands as a result of deliberate or accidental human activities.

Unknown: Nativeness status is unknown or ambiguous.

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List Differences

The Checklist contains only those species that are designated as "present" or "probably present" in the park.

The Full List includes all the checklist species in addition to species that are unconfirmed, historically detected, or incorrectly reported as being found in the park. The full list also contains species that are "in review" because their status in the park hasn't been fully determined. Additional details about the status of each species is included in the full list.

The checklist will almost always contain fewer species than the full list.

Select a Park:

Devils Tower National Monument

Select a Species Category (optional):

All Amphibians Birds Fish Mammals Reptiles Vascular Plants

Get Checklist Get Full List List Differences

Species attribute definitions

Search results will be displayed here.

Visit NPSpecies for more comprehensive information and advanced search capability. Have a suggestion or comment on this list? Let us know.

 

What is NPSpecies?

NPSpecies is a web-based tool for documenting the occurrence and status of species in national parks. NPSpecies gives parks a way to build, manage, maintain, and share park species lists. As part of the public IRMA Portal (Integrated Resource Management Applications), NPSpecies is available to you!

Much of the data currently in NPSpecies has been entered by Inventory & Monitoring Program networks. Sources of information include species inventories, monitoring projects, reports, publications, and museum collections. NPSpecies users can also submit suggestions on list additions or updates.

NPSpecies is always a work in progress. Lists continue to change and improve as we learn more about species in parks. Some species categories such as birds or mammals have had extensive research done and their information in NPSpecies is relatively stable. Other categories such as invertebrates or non-vascular plants are less well known, and information in NPSpecies may be missing or in the early stages of development.

 

Jackrabbit

NPS

A Scientific Opportunity

Have you ever taken a picture of a deer, lizard, or unusual plant? Through a mobile and web-based tool called iNaturalist**, you can now share your photographs online, and people all over the world can help identify your observations. Together, people everywhere will be helping to create a record of life in our parks.

Anyone visiting national park lands with a smartphone or digital camera can turn their photos of plants, animals, fungi, and other “critters” into useful data. Even if participants don’t know exactly which species they recorded, members of the global iNaturalist community work together to crowdsource identifications. Verified records from iNaturalist can be used to update NPSpecies, the official NPS database that documents our knowledge of the occurrence and status of species within each park.

Visit the iNaturalist website to learn more!
iNaturalist Instructions
iNaturalist Instructions(Spanish)
Many thanks to Cabrillo National Monument for letting us link to their videos!