Find Nature In North Carolina

Additional Wildlife of North Carolina

To flesh out your understanding of the region’s natural history, here is a breakdown of the specific taxa you can expect to encounter in the Tar Heel State.

Birds (Avifauna) The coastal refuges of eastern North Carolina, such as Mattamuskeet and Pocosin Lakes, host one of the largest wintering concentrations of Tundra Swans and Snow Geese on the continent. The sound of thousands of these birds lifting off the water simultaneously is a defining auditory experience of the coastal winter. In the Pine Sandhills, the federally endangered Red-cockaded Woodpecker makes its home. Unlike most woodpeckers, it excavates cavities in living longleaf pine trees, a labor-intensive process that can take years, creating sap flows that deter predators.

Mammals North Carolina is the only place in the world where the Red Wolf (Canis rufus) exists in the wild. This critically endangered species was reintroduced to the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge, where they patrol the vast agricultural fields and swamp forests. In the Great Smoky Mountains, the Elk (Wapiti) has been successfully reintroduced, reclaiming a range they occupied for centuries before extirpation. The coastal plain also supports the world’s highest density of Black Bears, which grow to immense sizes due to the mild winters and abundant agricultural crops.

Insects The mountains of North Carolina are famous for the Blue Ghost Firefly, a species where the males do not flash but instead emit a continuous, eerie blue-green glow as they hover just above the forest floor searching for wingless females. The state is also a critical habitat for the Monarch Butterfly during its migration, particularly along the Blue Ridge Parkway where milkweed is preserved. In the coastal plain, the specialized pollinators of the Venus flytrap—sweat bees and beetles—have evolved to visit the flowers (which are high on stalks) without triggering the deadly traps below.

Plants The Venus Flytrap is the botanical celebrity of the state, endemic only to a small radius around Wilmington. It evolved its carnivorous habit to supplement nitrogen in the nutrient-poor, acidic soils of the wet pine savannas. These savannas are dominated by the Longleaf Pine, a fire-dependent tree that once covered the Southeast. Restoration of the Longleaf ecosystem is a major conservation focus, as it supports a “wiregrass” understory that hosts hundreds of plant species per acre. In the mountains, Oconee Bells are a rare, shortia plant found in only a few gorges, a “living fossil” that fascinated early botanists like Asa Gray.

Fungi The humid, temperate rainforests of the Appalachians are a fungal paradise. Foxfire (bioluminescent fungi like Armillaria) is common here, causing decaying wood to glow green in the pitch-black mountain nights. Reishi (Hemlock Varnish Shelf) is abundant on the dying hemlocks, which are succumbing to the woolly adelgid. The Lion’s Mane mushroom is also frequently foraging in the hardwood coves, growing in massive, cascading white clumps on beech and maple trees.

North Carolina Biodiversity Profile

North Carolina represents one of the most dramatic elevational gradients in North America, plunging from the highest peak east of the Mississippi River down to the Graveyard of the Atlantic. This topographical slide creates three distinct biological provinces. The Coastal Plain dominates the eastern half of the state, a landscape defined by water and fire. It is home to the Albemarle-Pamlico Sound system, the second-largest estuary in the United States. Behind the shifting sands of the Outer Banks, these protected waters serve as a massive nursery for marine life. Inland, you find the unique Pocosin Wetlands—”swamps on a hill”—which are shrub-dominated peatlands that rely on periodic fire to maintain their biodiversity, preventing them from turning into hardwood forests.

Moving west, the Piedmont acts as a geological bridge. While heavily developed, this rolling plateau of red clay and ancient metamorphic rock contains the Uwharrie Mountains, some of the oldest mountain remnants in existence. The river basins here, such as the Cape Fear and Neuse, are critical freshwater highways that support endemic aquatic species, including rare freshwater mussels that act as biological water filters. The transition from the soft sediments of the coast to the hard rock of the Piedmont creates the “Fall Line,” a zone of turbulence and oxygenation that has historically been a spawning ground for anadromous fish.

The crown of the state is the Blue Ridge and Great Smoky Mountains in the west. This is a temperate rainforest ecosystem, receiving more rainfall than anywhere in the continental U.S. outside of the Pacific Northwest. The moisture and age of these mountains—they were once as tall as the Alps—have created a global hotspot for salamander diversity. The high elevations, crowned by Mount Mitchell (6,684 ft), host spruce-fir forests that function as “sky islands,” preserving a boreal ecosystem that has been isolated since the retreat of the last glaciers.