Top spots to see Yellowstone’s wonderful animals - America houses many national parks featuring stunning landscapes and fascinating flora and fauna. Its first national park is home to some of the country's most iconic animals. From bald eagles to gray wolves and grizzly bears, Yellowstone National Park has it all. But, as it covers an area of 3,472 sq mi and spans three states, not all parts offer the same opportunity to spot these wonderful creatures.

Bloggers at Cool Green Science have put together a list of the places where visitors are most likely to see the national park's animals. Check them out in the following images.

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The Lamar Valley - Located between Tower Junction and the Northeast Entrance at Cooke City, MT, Lamar Valley is the best spot in the lower 48 states to see large beasts roaming free.

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The Lamar Valley: Bison - Yellowstone houses the country's most important herd of bison. It is also the only place in the country where bison have continuously lived since prehistoric times.

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The Lamar Valley: Grizzly bears - Yellowstone and southwest Montana are the only areas south of Canada that still house a considerable population of these beautiful bears.

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The Lamar Valley: Badgers - These small mammals play an important role in Yellowstone's ecosystem as food for mountain lions, wolves, and bears.

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The Lamar Valley: Gray wolves - In the early 1900s, wolves were completely eradicated from Yellowstone under the wrong assumption that predators harmed the ecosystem by destroying populations of “beneficial animals.”

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The Lamar Valley: Gray wolves - Fortunately they were reintroduced to the park in 1995, and Lamar Valley is the best place to try to spot one.

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The Lamar Valley: Pronghorns - Prior to European settlement in the west, the pronghorn population reached approximately 35 million. Habitat depletion, hunting, and other harmful activities decimated its population to less than 500 in 2016.

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The Yellowstone River - Flowing through the park’s most beautiful landscapes (including the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone pictured here), the Yellowstone River is home to some of America's most beautiful fish.

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The Yellowstone River: Yellowstone cutthroat trout - This calorie-rich fish makes a great meal for hungry grizzly bears, bald eagles, and other species. But its population has been decreased by almost 99% since lake trout were illegally dumped in Lake Yellowstone more than 30 years ago.

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The Yellowstone River: Yellowstone cutthroat trout - Efforts are currently being made to use fish nets and other equipment to remove the non-native species and recover the cutthroat population.

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The Yellowstone River: Otter - These elusive creatures are hard to spot because they prefer to spend their days cuddled in their dens. The best time to spot them is during the winter when their coat is most reflective against the snow.

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The Yellowstone River: Bald eagles - America's most iconic eagle likes to fly over Yellowstone River's water in search of fish. The eagles were taken off the list of endangered species in 2007, so the chances of finding one has greatly improved.

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The Yellowstone River: Osprey - Like other bird species, osprey numbers declined severely after the 1950s due to pesticide use. But, thanks to heavy monitoring, the population is now pretty stable.

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Tower-Roosevelt - Home to the Tower Fall, this elevated area offers breathtaking views of the park.

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Tower-Roosevelt: Bighorn sheep - The area's cliffs are perfect for these animals as they use the elevation to evade predators.

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Tower-Roosevelt: Bighorn sheep - In 2015, the northern Yellowstone area housed 329 bighorn sheep, 163 of which were inside the park.

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Mammoth Hot Springs - Make this spot a priority on your list of must-sees. Even if you don't see any animals, the scenery alone is worth the trip.

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Mammoth Hot Springs: Mule deer - Also called blacktail deer, these animals roam across the park but can easily be spotted in this area.

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Mammoth Hot Springs: Black bears - Yellowstone is one of the few areas south of Canada where black bears coexist with grizzly bears.

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Geyser Basins - You won't find large animals here because the hot water, sulfuric acid, and other extreme conditions are too harsh to sustain wildlife. But a very specific type of life does live here...

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Geyser Basins - An array of bacteria and archaea, algae, protozoa, and fungi call this place their home, and they give us something quite special—beautiful colors.

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Geyser Basins - The cyanobacterial mats that thrive here are responsible for these amazingly colorful formations.

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Flat Ranch Preserve - Located right off Hwy 20, just 15 minutes west of West Yellowstone, the Nature Conservancy’s Flat Ranch offers a great and safe way to observe wildlife.

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Flat Ranch Preserve: Elk - Places like the preserve offer shelter to thousands of elk that search for lower elevations outside the park during the winter months.

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Flat Ranch Preserve: Moose - The preserve is also a great way to see moose, whose population has dwindled to less than 200 individuals.

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Flat Ranch Preserve: Long-billed curlews - The preserve is also home to one of the country's largest nesting populations of long-billed curlews.

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Flat Ranch Preserve: Sandhill cranes - Volunteers at the preserve offer spotting scopes that allow visitors to get a better look at these beautiful cranes, as well as other animals like Yellowstone's pronghorns.

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Flat Ranch Preserve: Rainbow trout - Thanks to a 2010 restoration project, you can now fish for rainbow and cutthroat trout in the preserve.

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Flat Ranch Preserve: Mule’s ear -

If you go during the spring and summer, you'll get to enjoy the preserve's beautiful fields covered in blooms of mule's ear.

See also: The most beautiful national parks in the world

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