FAUNA

Malá Fatra has got many species of plants and animals, too. Geographical location is one of the reasons for this diversification. Geological composition, vertical segmentation, exposition of slopes and climate are other reasons. More than 3200 species of animlas lives here. The biggest group are invertebrates (3000) a lot of them belong to endangered and criticaly threaten species. They are usually very small and normal visitor will overlook them during a visit of the park. Their unostentatiousness reclines in the way of their life and also in ambient in which they live. Beetles and butterflies are the most common species.

Cicindela silvicola

Carabus variolosus, Rosalia alpina, Cucujus cinaberinus and Lucanus cervus are infrequent species of beetles. Very infrequent butterfly is Parnassius apollo.

Parnassius apollo

210 species of vertebrates lives in Malá Fatra. We can find usual species of hoofed game (red deer, roe deer, wild boar) and also several chammoix right in the park. It is probably Rupicapra rupicapra, which is spurious species for this area. Dama dama starts to occur in northern part of park, too. We can find predators here: Ursus arctos, Lynx lynx, Canis lupus, Lutra lutra, Meles meles, Vulpes vulpes, Martes martes, Martes foina, Putorius eversmanni, Mustela nivalis and Mustela erminea.

 Wild boar with whelps

Aquila chrysaetos, Aquila pomarina, Falco peregrinus, Falco subbuteo, Falco tinnunculus,  Accipiter gentilis and Accipiter nisus are the most famous species of birds of prey. There lives also 7 species of owls. Strix aluco and Asio otus are the most common species. The biggest owl is Bubo bubo and the smallest is Glaucidium passerinum.

 whelp of Aquila chrysaetos