Animals of the Wild Forest

While mankind has a habit of domesticating some animals for agriculture or companionship, many of nature's creations remain simply too wild to be tamed. Whether they're dangerous, rare or simply fascinating, wild animals of all kinds roam the deep woods of North and South America.

  1. Mammalian Predators

    • Whether you call them cougars, mountain lions, pumas or cougars, these large cats are some of the most prolific and perfect predators in the world. Ranging primarily through the American West, Central and South America, cougars have been known to show up in the American East and South as well. American black bears live primarily in Canada, but they are quite common in some heavily forested lower latitudes as well. Grizzlies live mainly in Alaska and Northwestern Canada. Gray wolves aren't as common in the United States as they once were, now existing primarily in the wild lands of Northern Canada.

    Large Game

    • White-tailed deer are the most common deer in North America, ranging over most of the continent, east of the Sierra Nevada mountains as well as the northern coast of South America. Elk are very similar to the Red Deer found in Europe and live mainly in Canada's British Columbia and the American Pacific Northwest. Moose are the largest of the deer family, with different subspecies ranging through almost all of Alaska and Canada as well as Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and Colorado.

    Smaller Animals

    • The white-faced opossum, not to be confused with the brown possum of New Zealand, is a remnant of the time when America connected to Australia during the Jurassic period, and it remains the only marsupial native to North America. Armadillos are another holdout from an earlier era; the last members of a branch of the Xenartha family, which includes sloths and aardvarks. Raccoons are a member of the procyonidae family, and while their bandit-masked faces may make them look a bit like weasels, they're actually more closely related to dogs. Members of the mustelidae family spread throughout the Americas and include badgers, weasels, otters, ferrets and mink. Skunks were once considered part of the weasel family, but they're in a classification of their own: Mephitidae, a word meaning "stench."

    Wild Boar

    • Boars are a fairly recent addition to the North American ecology, having been brought in by Spanish explorers during the 1500s. While boars may have given rise to the domestic pig, these animals have about as much in common with Babe as timber wolves do with Lassie. As of 2011, boars live mainly in the American southeast. However, these animals are prolific breeders, and it may come to represent something of a plague if their numbers aren't kept in check. If you happen to come across a wild boar, do not approach it; boars are omnivores like us. They're very aggressive, territorial, opportunistic hunters and have been known to attack people.