Archives: Flora & Fauna

Fairy’s thimble bellflowers are light blue. The basal leaves are rounded and toothed. Fairy’s thimble is a spreading plant which grows on limestone and dolomite rocks and screes, embedding itself …

Until their extinction, brown bears lived in our forests for thousands of years.
In 1904 the last indigenous bear in Switzerland was shot by two hunters, Jon Sarott Bischoff and Padruot …

The Northern viper, measuring up to 60cm, is the only snake present in the National Park.
As its habitat it favours damp meadows, the sunny edges of forests and boulder fields …

The mountain hare is well adapted to the cold.
Mountain hares are, unlike field hares, common in the National Park. They bear the typical characteristics of alpine animals: sturdy build, broad …

The chamois is the only animal that has never become extinct or been exterminated in the National Park.

The need to protect the chamois was one of the main arguments for …

This rock is a mixture of dolomite and gypsum.
Cornieule – also called crystallized dolomite – is basically a dolomite full of cavities that contain gypsum. Due to dissolution of the …

These lilac and orange-coloured flowerheads adorn the alpine meadows in July.
The alpine aster has adapted itself to calcareous soils. It grows on open meadows such as at Margunet or Murter, …

The ptarmigan is the only bird that lives above the treeline in winter.
The ptarmigan overcomes the problem of energy loss in winter by eating large quantities within a short time, …

Marmots are steppe animals.
In the Alps, marmots live in alpine meadows and subalpine grassland. In this rather open terrain they are naturally dependent on their burrows to protect them from …

The so-called “Engadine Dolomites” owe their name to the presence of dolomite rock throughout the region.
Most of the mountains in the National Park consist of dolomite, a yellowish-grey rock that …

A  plant much talked about!
A lot of visitors ask about this yellowy-orange to orange plant, up to 40cm tall, that flowers abundantly in July and August. Pinnate-leaved ragwort is an …

With the disappearance of the wolf, lynx and bear, the fox has become the largest predator in the National Park.
Like the stone marten, the fox is widely distributed in the …

When subjected to high temperatures and great pressure, granite is transformed into gneiss.
Gneiss is a metamorphic rock. Its chemical composition is still that of the original granite. However, the distribution …

Both the black and the rosy vanilla orchid belong to the Orchid family.
You are almost sure to come across the blackish-purple vanilla orchid when walking in grassy, limestone meadows above …

Radiolarite is a special kind of rock. It came into being at around 5000 metres below sea level, on the sea floor, and is made of skeletons of radiolarians.
These microscopic …

A natural wonder.
At the Fuorcla Val dal Botsch the Rhaetian poppy grows in the midst of steep screes at 2650m altitude. Limestone debris is an extremely hostile environment, where only …

In 1961, on a steep rock slab in the Val dal Diavel, geologists discovered fossilized dinosaur tracks.
In 1981 a detailed study of this sensational find was made. Researchers mapped over …

A dainty, but very resistant plant.Alpine toadflax belongs to the Figwort family. This robust plant grows on limestone or dolomite screes up to 3000m altitude. In the National Park you …

The origin of this rock, an accumulation of debris such as sand and gravel, lies in the dismantling of a mountainous belt that existed long before the formation of the …

A relic from the Ice Age
In Switzerland, the pygmy buttercup is only found in the snowy valleys of the Macun plateau. Its little yellow flowers open in July or August.

Glacier crowfoot is a plant of arctic origin and grows exclusively on acid soils, such as on the Macun plateau.
It favours altitudes above 2300m. The pink tint on the petals …

It can be advantageous to be small. Moss campion grows in compact, moss-like cushions on open grassland and scree, mainly on limestone and dolomite. The little pink flowers are carried …

Their scent gives these plants away!
Daphne striata (above)
Daphne mezereum (below)

Common mezereon (Daphne mezereum) and striated mezereon (Daphne striata): both these daphne species are small shrubs, and are poisonous. In the …

A little gem that grows at very high altitudes but is quite scarce.
Swiss androsace anchors itself in rock crevices by means of a long taproot that enables it to draw …