Common Raven
Heavy bill, shaggy throat, and wedge-shaped tail separate the raven from crows as it works cliffs, tundra, forests, and towns.
Utah, United States: places and wildlife — page 2
Browse the published Explore collection for Utah, United States. Open a discovery for its field guide, practical details, and background.
Ruffed Grouse
Mottled bark-colored plumage, a dark tail band, and the male’s accelerating wing-drumming suit dense young forest better than open lawn.
Hermit Thrush
Spotted breast, plain face, and a reddish tail contrasting with a browner back identify the thrush behind one of Vermont’s clearest woodland songs.
California Quail
The forward-drooping topknot, scaled belly, and quick ground-running coveys belong to California’s adaptable native quail.
Osprey
Dark eye stripe, kinked long wings, and reversible outer toes identify the fish specialist nesting beside Oregon waters.
Largemouth Bass
A jaw extending behind the eye, deep body, and dark side stripe separate largemouth bass from their smaller-mouthed relatives.
Bluegill
A deep compressed body, dark ear flap, and blue-green cheek identify a widespread sunfish that rewards close looking.
Monarch Butterfly
Orange wings with heavy black veins identify a migrant whose caterpillars can eat only milkweeds and whose journey outlasts any one summer adult.
Common Green Darner
Large size, bright green thorax, and a dark bull’s-eye on the forehead help identify a darner capable of continental movement.
Big Sagebrush
Three-toothed wedge leaves, silvery foliage, and a resinous scent identify a shrub that shelters far more life than its muted color suggests.
Douglas-fir
Three-pointed bracts protruding from each cone scale make Douglas-fir recognizable even when its immense crown is far overhead.
Northern Mockingbird
Arkansas’s state bird patrols open neighborhood territories, flashing white wings and stitching other birds’ sounds into long improvised songs.
Gunnison Sage-Grouse
Look first for shorter tail and thicker white head plumes than Greater Sage-Grouse, then confirm it in large intact sagebrush landscapes around the gunnison basin. Those two clues make Gunnison Sage-Grouse much easier to identify responsibly in Colorado.
Colorado Chipmunk
Look first for large chipmunk with dark facial stripes and warm ochre sides, then confirm it in rocky foothills, canyon walls, and open woodland in the central southwest. Those two clues make Colorado Chipmunk much easier to identify responsibly in Colorado.
Colorado River Cutthroat Trout
Look first for red-orange throat slashes, warm flanks, and spotting concentrated toward the tail, then confirm it in cold western-slope headwaters in the colorado and green river basins. Those two clues make Colorado River Cutthroat Trout much easier to identify responsibly in Colorado.
Colorado Hairstreak
Look first for purple wings with broad dark margins and orange spots near the hindwing tails, then confirm it in gambel oak woodland and scrub in colorado and the four corners region. Those two clues make Colorado Hairstreak much easier to identify responsibly in Colorado.
Rocky Mountain Columbine
Look first for blue-violet sepals, white petals, and long backward-pointing spurs, then confirm it in montane and subalpine meadows, open woods, and moist rocky slopes. Those two clues make Rocky Mountain Columbine much easier to identify responsibly in Colorado.
Colorado Blue Spruce
Look first for stiff sharp four-sided needles and gray-brown furrowed bark, then confirm it in cool stream valleys and moist mountain slopes in the central and southern rockies. Those two clues make Colorado Blue Spruce much easier to identify responsibly in Colorado.
Natural History Museum of Utah
Utah’s dinosaurs, minerals, ecosystems, and living Native cultures unfold through a terraced museum whose architecture reads like an uplifted slice of the Wasatch foothills.
Zion National Park
The Virgin River threads beneath Navajo sandstone walls, hanging gardens, slot canyons, and high plateaus—but a good visit depends as much on shuttle timing, heat, and water as scenery.
Delicate Arch Trail
A cairn-marked climb crosses open sandstone, passes Wolfe Ranch and Ute rock markings, then rounds a narrow ledge into the immense natural amphitheater beneath Delicate Arch.
Utah Prairie Dog
Utah’s endemic prairie dog is a compact, highly social burrower whose upright sentinels animate the high meadows of the state’s southwest.
Sego Lily
Utah’s state flower rises sparsely from dry ground, each cup-shaped bloom carrying a purple eye and a yellow, hairy band that guides pollinators inward.
Utah Museum of Fine Arts
Five millennia of art meet exhibitions that ask how objects acquire meaning, ownership, and responsibility inside Utah’s state art museum.
Hill Aerospace Museum
More than seventy aircraft turn aviation history into a study of engineering, labor, war, and Hill Air Force Base’s continuing role in northern Utah.
Museum of Utah
Utah’s new state history museum brings more than nine hundred objects into four galleries about becoming, building, connecting, and inspiring a complicated state.
Park City Museum
A silver-mining town’s machinery, jail cells, disasters, labor, and transformation into a ski destination fill the former city hall on Main Street.
Prehistoric Museum, USU Eastern
Dinosaurs, Ice Age life, archaeology, and geology remain tied to the Castle Country landscapes where museum researchers recovered them.
Moab Museum
A compact community museum links the Moab Valley’s Indigenous histories, geology, ranching, uranium boom, and tourism without flattening them into scenery.
Utah Field House of Natural History
Fossils, geologic time, and a walk-through dinosaur garden make Vernal’s field house both a regional museum and a launch point for Dinosaurland.
Church History Museum
Art, documents, personal belongings, migration technology, and changing exhibitions interpret a global faith from its institutional center beside Temple Square.
Arches National Park
More than two thousand documented arches rise among fins, balanced rocks, and Entrada sandstone above the Colorado River corridor.
Bryce Canyon National Park
Frost and summer rain carve the Paunsaugunt Plateau’s pink limestone into the world’s largest concentration of hoodoos.
Canyonlands National Park
The Colorado and Green Rivers cut an immense maze of mesas, canyons, needles, and remote backcountry that no internal road connects.
Capitol Reef National Park
The Waterpocket Fold lifts tilted rock beside orchards, petroglyphs, canyons, and the historic settlement of Fruita.
Dead Horse Point State Park
A high sandstone neck leads to a sheer overlook where river bends, salt anticlines, and Canyonlands unfold two thousand feet below.
Goblin Valley State Park
Soft Entrada sandstone erodes into a broad basin of squat, mushroom-shaped goblins that visitors can explore at ground level.
Antelope Island State Park
A causeway reaches the Great Salt Lake’s largest island, where bison, shorebirds, beaches, ranch history, and mountain trails share a saline landscape.
Snow Canyon State Park
White and red Navajo sandstone, dark lava flows, tubes, dunes, and desert life compress a remarkable geologic cross-section into one canyon.
Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park
Salmon-colored sand moves through a notch between plateaus, supporting recreation and a tiger beetle found nowhere else.
Natural Bridges National Monument
Sipapu, Kachina, and Owachomo span White Canyon, where flowing water—not arch-style weathering—cut openings through stone fins.
Grand Staircase–Escalante National Monument
Nearly roadless plateaus, slot canyons, badlands, and fossil-bearing formations spread across a monument larger than many national parks.
Angels Landing Trail
Walter’s Wiggles and a chain-assisted sandstone ridge lead to a famous perch with severe exposure and no room for casual risk.
The Narrows
Hikers travel directly through the Virgin River between thousand-foot walls, where flow, cold water, footing, and flash floods govern every decision.
Navajo Loop and Queen’s Garden Trail
Two Bryce trails combine into a steep descent through Wall Street or Two Bridges and a gentler return among Queen’s Garden formations.
Chesler Park Loop
A demanding backcountry circuit crosses passes, open grassland, and the narrow Joint Trail among the Needles district’s striped sandstone spires.
Hickman Bridge Trail
A short but exposed climb leaves Highway 24 for a 133-foot sandstone bridge, Fremont granaries, and broad Waterpocket Fold views.
Lake Blanche Trail
The trail rises from shaded Big Cottonwood Canyon to Lake Blanche beneath Sundial Peak, gaining nearly three thousand feet in under four miles.