Dinosaurs in Tennessee: The Bones Beneath Music City
By Paul Whitten, Founder of Nashville Adventures
People on my tours ask me the strangest, best questions, and one of my favorites is a kid classic: "did dinosaurs live here?"
The honest answer about dinosaurs in Tennessee is "barely, and it is complicated," which is the least satisfying thing you can tell an eight-year-old. But the longer answer is a lot more fun, because the ground under this state has coughed up duck-billed dinosaurs, sea monsters, and a saber-toothed cat that ended up naming an NHL team.
So let me give you the real story, the way I would on a walk.
The Truth About Dinosaurs in Tennessee
Here is the part that surprises people. Tennessee is not a dinosaur graveyard like Montana or Wyoming, truth is we are missing most of the Age of Dinosaurs in our rocks entirely.
For a huge chunk of the Mesozoic, the land that became Middle and East Tennessee was high and dry and eroding, so sediments were washing away instead of piling up and burying bones. West Tennessee was the opposite, often underwater beneath a shallow sea. Neither situation is great for making dinosaur fossils.
That is why actual dinosaurs in Tennessee are rare. But "rare" is not "never," and what we have found is genuinely cool.
Meet Tennessee's Only Dinosaur: the Edmontosaurus
Tennessee has exactly one confirmed land dinosaur, and it is a duck-billed hadrosaur called Edmontosaurus.
The bones were tracked down in the University of Tennessee's own collection, believed to have been pulled from the ground in West Tennessee back in the 1940s. We are talking three tail vertebrae, part of a leg, and a foot bone, enough to figure out this animal ran somewhere between 26 and 29 feet long. The Tennessee State Museum walks through the find in detail.
Picture a plant-eating giant the length of a school bus, grazing the swampy coastline that once was West Tennessee during the Cretaceous. That is our hometown dinosaur. The University's McClung Museum in Knoxville even has a life-size Edmontosaurus to stand next to, which is the closest you will get to meeting one on this side of extinction.
When Tennessee Was Underwater
The reason West Tennessee keeps giving up fossils is that it spent the late Cretaceous beneath a warm, shallow ocean.
Dig into the right layers out there, especially the famous Coon Creek beds, and you find a lost seafloor: mosasaurs, those big marine reptiles with jaws like a nightmare, plus plesiosaurs, sharks, and enough fossil crabs and shells to fill a museum drawer. These were not dinosaurs, technically, but they were swimming right over the top of Tennessee while the dinosaurs walked the shore.
The Coolest Bones Nashville Ever Dug Up
Now for my favorite set of Tennessee bones, and they are not even a dinosaur.
In the summer of 1971, construction crews were blasting limestone downtown to build the First American Center, the tower that is now the UBS Tower on Union Street. The blasting opened a hidden cave, and inside it was the skeleton of a Smilodon fatalis, a saber-toothed cat bigger than an African lion that prowled Ice Age Nashville.
Those sabers were not for show. As Vanderbilt paleontologist Dr. Larisa DeSantis put it:
The purpose of the large saber is basically to let the prey bleed out very quickly. (via WPLN)
The crew that helped dig it out had no clue what they had found at first. John Dowd, who worked the site, remembered it simply: "We had no idea what was there. But once we seen there was some real early stuff in there, we got excited" (via WPLN).
And here is the fun part, the one I save for the sidewalk. When Nashville got its NHL team in the late 1990s, that downtown saber-toothed cat is exactly why they are the Predators, fangs and all. The original saber went missing before 1990 and was never found, so a replica stands in at Bridgestone Arena. Not bad for a cat that has been dead for 10,000 years.
Where to See Tennessee's Prehistoric Past
You do not need a shovel to get close to this stuff. Here is where I send the fossil-curious:
Tennessee State Museum (Nashville): free, downtown, and home to Tennessee's prehistoric story, dinosaur bones included.
McClung Museum (Knoxville): the life-size Edmontosaurus and a solid natural history hall.
Coon Creek Science Center (McNairy County): the legendary Cretaceous seafloor, where you can actually dig for marine fossils.
Gray Fossil Site (East Tennessee): run by ETSU, this one is about 5 million years old and has turned up red pandas, rhinos, tapirs, and mastodons. You can read about the dig at ETSU.
Frequently Asked Questions
Did dinosaurs live in Tennessee?
Yes, but only a little. Confirmed dinosaur fossils are rare in Tennessee because much of the state was either eroding highland or underwater during the Age of Dinosaurs. The one solid land dinosaur found here is the duck-billed Edmontosaurus, from West Tennessee.
What dinosaur was found in Tennessee?
An Edmontosaurus, a plant-eating duck-billed hadrosaur that lived in the Cretaceous period. The partial skeleton, including tail vertebrae and leg and foot bones, came from West Tennessee and suggests an animal 26 to 29 feet long.
Where can you find fossils in Tennessee?
West Tennessee is the fossil hot spot, especially the Coon Creek Formation, which preserves Cretaceous sea life like mosasaurs, sharks, and crabs. The Coon Creek Science Center lets the public dig, and the Gray Fossil Site in East Tennessee preserves animals from about 5 million years ago.
Is the Nashville Predators logo based on a real fossil?
Yes. A saber-toothed cat skeleton was found in a cave under downtown Nashville in 1971 during construction. That Ice Age predator inspired the Nashville Predators name and their fanged saber-tooth logo.
Dig Into Nashville With Me
Prehistoric Nashville is the ultimate hook for a curious kid, or a curious adult who refuses to fully grow up.
If you are building a trip around the young explorers in your group, start with my guide to Nashville with kids, and if you want the grown-up version of hidden history, our things to do in Nashville besides the bars covers the rest. The best way to feel how deep this city's story really goes is on foot, though, so come take our Nashville walking tour, browse everything on the what to do in Nashville page, or just reach out and I will help you plan a day that goes back a few million years.
