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A Yellowstone tour guide and former park ranger captured a photo during his "phenomenal" encounter with a wolverine, the rarest and most elusive animal at the national park.
MacNeil Lyons shared a lengthy post on the Facebook page for his website YellowstoneInsight.com with photos of the wolverine crossing the street.
"With only 6-7 wolverine inside Yellowstone National Park (conservative estimate), we felt beyond elated at this chance encounter with this elusive creature," the post on Yellowstone Insight's Facebook page read. "About 11:38 a.m. yesterday we rounded the corner heading westbound and in the on coming lane was a low-to-the-ground, dark animal loping away from us. My guest said out loud, exactly what I was thinking, "Is that a bear?"... For a hot second, we both thought that it might be a young black bear moving away from us, but as it turned and looked over its right shoulder towards us - there was no mistaking that the animal was indeed, a Wolverine!"
The Wolverine is the largest species of the mustelid (weasel) family, which also includes otters, ferrets and minks and Yellowstone National Park is typically the southernmost range in North America for the animal.
As noted, less than 10 wolverines are believed to live in the 2.2 million-acre national park.
Lyons said that his recent wolverine sighting was his first during more than 20 years working at and traveling in Yellowstone.