Fauna & Wildlife

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Last updated: April 21, 2026

The animals of Marion County live in three overlapping worlds: the dry oak-hickory ridges and rockhouse sandstone of the Cumberland Plateau, the limestone-floored farmland and karst streams of the Sequatchie Valley, and the steep rich-soil slopes and slack water of the Tennessee River Gorge. Each landscape has its own characteristic species. A summer evening at Nickajack Cave can include a column of one hundred thousand gray bats leaving the entrance; a walk along the Sequatchie River may turn up a hellbender salamander under a rock; a Prentice Cooper ridge in May fills with cerulean warbler song.

Species lists here draw from Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency records, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service listings, eBird Tennessee sightings, iNaturalist observations, Tennessee River Gorge Trust inventories, and published field guides. Where a species is regionally characteristic but has not been specifically documented in Marion, the prose notes that. Hunting and fishing regulations are outside the scope of this page; it is a habitat and natural-history reference.

• Mammals: ~55 species, from black bear to pygmy shrew
• Birds: ~240 species reported in the county on eBird, split between year-round residents, breeding migrants, and passage migrants
• Reptiles and amphibians: ~70 species; plateau rockhouses and caves support several regional specialists
• Fish: ~90 native species in the Tennessee River and its tributaries within Marion County
• Federal listings relevant to the county: gray bat (endangered), Indiana bat (endangered), northern long-eared bat (endangered), eastern hellbender (proposed endangered 2024), monarch butterfly (proposed threatened 2024)

Mammals of the forest and farmland

The white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) is the most abundant large mammal in the county. Deer were near-extirpated across Tennessee by the 1930s through unregulated market hunting and habitat loss; restocking efforts by what would become the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency brought the herd back. Today every landscape in Marion County supports deer, from the plateau ridges to suburban edges around Jasper and Kimball. Peak activity is dawn and dusk; November's rut brings deer onto highways, and vehicle collisions spike every fall.

The American black bear (Ursus americanus) is the county's largest native carnivore. Black bears disappeared from most of the southern Cumberland Plateau by the mid-twentieth century. Populations in the Smokies and in Big South Fork have grown in recent decades, and bears have been dispersing west and south through the plateau's wild corridors. Confirmed sightings have become regular in Prentice Cooper State Forest, the Sewanee Domain, and Savage Gulf. A bear here is almost always a young male looking for territory; females with cubs follow more slowly. Food storage rules at plateau campgrounds have been tightening in response.

Coyotes (Canis latrans) are present throughout the county and audible most nights. They colonized Tennessee in the twentieth century and now fill much of the ecological space that red wolves once occupied. Bobcats (Lynx rufus) hunt rabbits and rodents along forest edges. Gray foxes (Urocyon cinereoargenteus), the only American canid that climbs trees, share the woods with red foxes (Vulpes vulpes, more typical of open farmland).

The North American river otter (Lontra canadensis) is one of the county's conservation success stories. Otters were extirpated from almost all of Tennessee by the 1950s through trapping and polluted rivers. TWRA reintroductions in the 1980s and 1990s on the Tennessee and Cumberland systems took hold; otters now breed on Nickajack Lake, the lower Sequatchie River, and smaller tributaries. Sign (slides, scat on log piles, five-toed tracks) is easier to find than the animal itself. Beavers (Castor canadensis) have also recovered and now maintain ponds on many small tributaries of the Sequatchie.

Smaller mammals

The eastern cottontail (Sylvilagus floridanus) is the standard rabbit of valley farmland, field edges, and yards. The Appalachian cottontail (Sylvilagus obscurus), a separate species associated with higher-elevation heath and mountain laurel thickets, ranges along the Cumberland Plateau and has been documented in adjacent counties; it is harder to confirm in the field because it closely resembles the eastern cottontail in size and color. Under current TWRA guidance, distinguishing the two requires skull measurements or genetic sampling.

The county's small-mammal fauna includes the usual plateau cast: eastern gray squirrel, fox squirrel, southern flying squirrel, eastern chipmunk, white-footed mouse, deer mouse, pine vole, short-tailed shrew, and least shrew. Striped skunks (Mephitis mephitis) patrol fields and yards; Virginia opossums (Didelphis virginiana, the only marsupial north of Mexico) turn up everywhere from river bottoms to dumpsters. Raccoons (Procyon lotor) are abundant around any water.

Bats and the shadow of white-nose syndrome

Marion County is bat country. Its limestone karst supports large caves that bats use for maternity roosts in summer and hibernacula in winter, and its extensive forested escarpments provide feeding airspace and tree-roost habitat. Nine bat species are expected in the county, most of them state-listed and several federally listed.

The gray bat (Myotis grisescens) is the signature species. The maternity colony at Nickajack Cave is one of the largest known anywhere in the species' range; TWRA estimates place the summer population at well over one hundred thousand animals, with numbers continuing to rise since the cave was gated in 1981. At dusk from late May through August, the column of bats leaving the cave mouth is visible from boats on Nickajack Lake. Gray bats have been federally endangered since 1976 and remain listed. They feed almost exclusively over water and are unusually dependent on a small number of specific caves; for the southeastern United States, Nickajack is one of those caves.

The Indiana bat (Myotis sodalis) has been federally endangered since 1967. It hibernates in cold, stable caves and forms maternity colonies in loose-bark tree roosts, usually along streams. Marion County's karst and riparian corridors provide suitable habitat; Indiana bats have been confirmed in caves a short distance north and east of the county. The northern long-eared bat (Myotis septentrionalis), reclassified from threatened to endangered in 2022 after white-nose syndrome collapse, uses similar habitat. The tri-colored bat (Perimyotis subflavus) was proposed for federal listing in 2022 and is awaiting a final rule.

The eastern red bat (Lasiurus borealis) roosts in tree foliage rather than caves and migrates south for winter. Males are a bright brick-red; females a duller, frosted chestnut. In late summer, a red bat hanging under a leaf looks very much like a dead oak leaf itself. The big brown bat (Eptesicus fuscus), hoary bat (Lasiurus cinereus, the largest bat in the county at up to sixteen inches of wingspan), and evening bat (Nycticeius humeralis) round out the expected roster.

Ecological threats to bats and the gray-bat colony at Nickajack are treated more fully on the endemic and notable species page.

Reptiles — snakes

Two venomous snakes are reliably present in Marion County: the timber rattlesnake (Crotalus horridus) and the copperhead (Agkistrodon contortrix). Both are pit vipers with triangular heads, vertical pupils, and heat-sensing pits between nostril and eye. Both are protected under Tennessee wildlife law; it is illegal to kill a snake in Tennessee without cause.

The timber rattlesnake favors rocky oak-hickory ridges and talus slopes on the Cumberland Plateau escarpment. Color varies widely: some animals are nearly black, others yellow with dark crossbands, others a reddish variant sometimes called the “canebrake” form. Most individuals on plateau rim sites fall in the 36- to 48-inch range; older animals can exceed five feet. Timber rattlesnakes are ambush hunters that spend most of their lives within a mile of a communal den site on a sunny ridge; those dens are often in use for a century or more.

The copperhead is common throughout Marion County in a wider range of habitats than the rattlesnake, from stream bottoms to suburban woodlots. Coppery tan with dark hourglass crossbands (the narrowest part of each band centered on the spine), the copperhead is well camouflaged in leaf litter. Copperhead bites are the most frequent venomous-snake bites in Tennessee, partly because the species holds its ground rather than fleeing and partly because it is common in yards. Bites are rarely fatal but are medical emergencies.

Marion's nonvenomous snakes include the eastern ratsnake (Pantherophis alleghaniensis, a glossy black snake up to six feet long that climbs trees and raids bird nests), the black racer (Coluber constrictor, a fast, slender, pure-black snake of fields and forest edges), the eastern milk snake, ring-necked snake, rough green snake, scarlet king snake, and eastern garter snake. All are harmless.

Turtles and lizards

The eastern box turtle (Terrapene carolina) is Tennessee's state reptile and the turtle most often encountered in Marion County woods. Its domed carapace is marked with yellow or orange on brown, and a hinged lower shell lets the animal close itself completely into a box when threatened. Individual box turtles are long-lived: forty years is typical, and a hundred years is documented. They have a strong homing instinct and small home ranges of just a few acres; moving a box turtle away from where it was found almost always condemns it. Leave them where they are.

Aquatic turtles include the common snapping turtle (Chelydra serpentina) in every pond and backwater, the eastern painted turtle (Chrysemys picta) basking on logs, the northern map turtle (Graptemys geographica) on the Tennessee River, and the river cooter (Pseudemys concinna), Marion's largest stream turtle.

Lizards are modestly represented. The five-lined skink (Plestiodon fasciatus) is the most commonly seen: juveniles are dark with five yellow stripes and a brilliant blue tail, adult males develop reddish heads and lose the stripes during the breeding season. The broad-headed skink (Plestiodon laticeps), a larger and more arboreal cousin, is found in hardwood canopies. Eastern fence lizards (Sceloporus undulatus) sun themselves on sandstone and on old stone walls, and ground skinks (Scincella lateralis) slip through leaf litter.

Amphibians — salamanders of the Cumberland

The southern Cumberland Plateau is a global hotspot for salamander diversity. Cool, wet, rockhouse-rich sandstone and the karst waters of the Sequatchie Valley combine to support a salamander fauna that rivals anywhere on Earth outside the Appalachian crest itself.

The eastern hellbender (Cryptobranchus alleganiensis) is North America's largest salamander: adults reach two feet and live up to thirty years. Hellbenders require cold, clear, well-oxygenated streams with large flat rocks for shelter and nest sites. They have wrinkled, gray-brown skin with a flat head, lidless eyes, and a finned tail. Despite folklore to the contrary, they are not venomous and are harmless to people and fish. The Sequatchie River and its tributaries are within their historical range, though Marion records are sparse; TWRA lists the species as “Deemed in Need of Management.” In December 2024, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed listing the eastern hellbender as endangered under the Endangered Species Act. Siltation from development, stream channelization, and water-quality decline are the main threats.

The Tennessee cave salamander (Gyrinophilus palleucus) is a cave-obligate species found only in limestone caves of the Cumberland Plateau and interior Low Plateau regions of Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia. Marion County's karst caves lie within its documented range, with confirmed records in adjacent counties. The species has reduced eyes, a flattened head, pale pink-white skin with scattered dark flecks, and retains its larval gills throughout life. It is listed as “Deemed in Need of Management” by TWRA. Access to most caves that support it is restricted to protect the species.

The green salamander (Aneides aeneus) is a small, flat-bodied climbing salamander that lives in narrow vertical crevices in sandstone rockhouses and cliff faces. It has a dark body overlaid with bright, lichen-like green or yellow-green blotches: the camouflage against mossy sandstone is almost perfect. The species is globally vulnerable due to its extraordinarily narrow habitat requirements. The Cumberland Plateau is one of its population strongholds. Rockhouses along the Fiery Gizzard Trail and elsewhere on the Marion/Grundy escarpment have supported populations historically; disturbance and drying have been implicated in localized declines.

Common plateau and valley salamanders include the spotted salamander (Ambystoma maculatum, migrating to vernal pools on rainy March nights), the northern slimy salamander (Plethodon glutinosus, black with white flecks, secreting a sticky defense), the southern zigzag salamander (Plethodon ventralis), the northern dusky salamander (Desmognathus fuscus), and the two-lined salamander (Eurycea bislineata complex) along cold seeps.

Frogs and toads

In late March, spring peepers (Pseudacris crucifer) sing from flooded ditches and vernal pools in a chorus that can be heard a quarter mile off. Gray treefrogs (Hyla versicolor / H. chrysoscelis) call from trees around the edges of ponds from May through August; the two species are nearly impossible to tell apart by sight but have distinct trilled calls. American toads (Anaxyrus americanus) and Fowler's toads (Anaxyrus fowleri) breed in nearly any standing water. Bullfrogs (Lithobates catesbeianus) and green frogs (Lithobates clamitans) sit on every lake and pond edge, and wood frogs (Lithobates sylvaticus), one of the first amphibians to breed each year, call from plateau vernal pools while ice still rims the shallows.

Fish and aquatic life

The Tennessee River system historically held one of the most diverse freshwater fish faunas in the world, and Marion County sits at a confluence point between the main-stem river and the Sequatchie River drainage. Even after nineteenth- and twentieth-century impacts (channelization, damming, siltation, mussel-shell harvests), the county still hosts roughly ninety native fish species including many small darters that most people never see.

The paddlefish (Polyodon spathula) is the most prehistoric fish in the Tennessee River. Its long flat rostrum (up to a third of total body length) is covered in electroreceptors that detect the weak fields of the zooplankton it filter-feeds. Paddlefish can reach seven feet and sixty pounds. They are a relict species with a lineage stretching back more than three hundred million years and are listed as vulnerable under Tennessee regulation due to habitat fragmentation from dams that block their upstream spawning runs.

The lake sturgeon (Acipenser fulvescens) was extirpated from the middle Tennessee River by the mid-twentieth century through habitat degradation and overharvest. Starting in 2000, the Tennessee Lake Sturgeon Working Group (TWRA, USFWS, TVA, and regional universities) began stocking juvenile sturgeon raised from broodstock in the Wisconsin River. The first recapture of a stocked sturgeon from Nickajack Lake occurred in 2011, more than four decades after the last confirmed wild fish. Sturgeon grow slowly (first spawning at fifteen to twenty-five years) and will take decades to establish a self-sustaining population; the current Tennessee population is still entirely hatchery-origin. They are protected from harvest year-round.

The snail darter (Percina tanasi) is a small (three-inch) bottom-dwelling fish that became one of the most famous species in American environmental law. Discovered in 1973 in the Little Tennessee River during surveys ahead of Tellico Dam construction, it was federally listed as endangered in 1975. The case Tennessee Valley Authority v. Hill (1978) reached the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled that the Endangered Species Act required the dam's completion to be halted. Congress subsequently exempted Tellico from the Act; the dam closed in 1979. Translocations to other Tennessee River tributaries and rediscovery of previously unknown populations led to downlisting to threatened in 1984 and full delisting in 2022. Snail darters are present in portions of the main-stem Tennessee River and its tributaries within the Marion County reach, though the species is now considered secure enough to be off the list.

The Tennessee River in Marion County supports a full complement of sport fish: smallmouth bass, largemouth bass, walleye and sauger (joint state fish of Tennessee), white bass, striped bass, freshwater drum (the Tennessee state record of 54 pounds 8 ounces was caught in Nickajack Lake by Benny Hull in 1972), and channel, blue, and flathead catfish. Bluegill, redear sunfish, and crappie are universal in backwater coves. The Sequatchie River supports smallmouth bass as its signature gamefish along with rock bass and longear sunfish.

Small-bodied fish diversity is especially rich. Darters of the genera Percina and Etheostoma (greenside, banded, Tennessee snubnose, rainbow, redline, and many others) fill nearly every riffle. Madtoms (small armored catfish), stonerollers, shiners, and dace are staples of the upper Sequatchie tributaries.

Freshwater mussels

Before the twentieth century, the Tennessee River system held one of the most diverse freshwater mussel faunas on Earth, possibly the most diverse of any river system outside the tropics, with more than 120 species recorded basin-wide. Mussels feed by filtering water and require a clean, flowing substrate; their life cycle depends on a parasitic larval stage (called a glochidium) that attaches to the gills of a specific host fish species. Dam construction, siltation, channelization, and the commercial pearl-button mussel-shell harvest of 1890–1940 collapsed those populations. Dozens of species went extinct across the basin.

In the Marion County reach of the river and in the Sequatchie drainage, surviving mussel species include the plain pocketbook (Lampsilis cardium), round hickorynut (Obovaria subrotunda), pyramid pigtoe (Pleurobema rubrum), fluted kidneyshell (Ptychobranchus subtentum), and others. Ongoing mussel recovery and propagation by TVA, TWRA, USFWS, and the Tennessee Aquarium Conservation Institute have been re-establishing some species upstream of Marion; their long-term recovery in the Tennessee River will take generations.

Sequatchie Valley spring endemics

Two aquatic invertebrates endemic to Marion County live in the Sequatchie Valley's cold karst springs and nowhere else on Earth. The Royal Snail (Marstonia ogmorhaphe) is a hydrobiid snail under five millimeters long, described by F. G. Thompson in 1977 and federally listed as endangered on April 15, 1994. It is known from only two springs: Blue Spring (Jasper's municipal water source) and Owen Spring at the mouth of Sequatchie Cave, roughly four miles away. The Sequatchie Caddisfly (Glyphopsyche sequatchie) is an aquatic insect whose larvae build sand-and-debris cases in cold spring-fed streams; it was first described from Owen Spring Branch at Sequatchie Cave State Natural Area and is known from that type locality and three other Marion County streams, nowhere else. USFWS considered federal listing for the caddisfly but issued a “not warranted” finding on October 8, 2015; it remains a Tennessee Species of Greatest Conservation Need. Sequatchie Cave is also the type locality for two terrestrial cave obligates, the Blowing Cave beetle (Pseudanophthalmus ventus, Barr 1981) and the cave millipede Scoterpes ventus (Shear 1972), both eyeless, depigmented, and restricted to the cave's subterranean drainage. All four species are treated in full detail on the endemic and notable species page.

Birds — year-round residents

The eastern wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo silvestris) was nearly extirpated from Tennessee by the early twentieth century through unregulated hunting and forest loss. TWRA trap-and-transfer restocking programs from the 1950s through the 1980s brought turkeys back; the species is now common across Marion County. Gobblers can be heard from early March into May, with the peak of breeding activity around the first week of April. Flocks feed in plateau hardwood forests and move down into valley fields to roost and feed in winter.

The pileated woodpecker (Dryocopus pileatus) is the county's largest woodpecker at seventeen inches long, with a prominent red crest and a laughing call that carries through mature hardwood forest. Pileateds excavate large rectangular holes in standing dead wood while hunting carpenter ants, and their abandoned cavities are reused by owls, wood ducks, and flying squirrels. Four smaller woodpeckers share the county: red-bellied (Melanerpes carolinus, the zebra-backed woodpecker most often at backyard feeders), downy (Dryobates pubescens, tiny, common everywhere), hairy (Dryobates villosus, larger lookalike of the downy, more deep-woods than yard), and the migratory yellow-bellied sapsucker (Sphyrapicus varius, present in winter only). The northern flicker (Colaptes auratus, yellow-shafted race) rounds out the list, often foraging on the ground for ants.

The signature songbirds of Marion forests year-round are the Carolina chickadee, tufted titmouse, white-breasted nuthatch, Carolina wren, and northern cardinal. Winter adds juncos, white-throated sparrows, yellow-rumped warblers, and hermit thrushes from the north. Open-country birds include the eastern bluebird, American kestrel, eastern meadowlark (declining), and eastern towhee.

Birds — neotropical migrants

From mid-April through mid-May, a wave of long-distance migrants arrives in Marion County from wintering grounds in Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean. Many are forest breeders that hold territory through July and leave by early September. The same forested plateau slopes and gorge ravines that make Marion County good hemlock and hickory habitat also make it a stronghold for several globally declining songbirds.

The cerulean warbler (Setophaga cerulea) is one of the most specialized and most threatened songbirds in eastern North America. Males are a clear sky-blue above with a narrow black necklace; females are aqua-green. Ceruleans breed in the upper canopy of mature deciduous forest and have declined about 70 percent continent-wide since 1966. Tennessee River Gorge Trust banding stations on gorge slopes (partly within the Marion County portion of the Gorge) have documented cerulean use of these forests during the breeding season, making the county's share of the Gorge a meaningful piece of the species' southern Appalachian range.

The worm-eating warbler (Helmitheros vermivorum) is a buff and black warbler with striped head markings; it hunts for leaf-rolling caterpillars in dead-leaf clusters hanging in the understory. Worm-eating warblers breed in steep, leaf-littered ravine slopes with a closed canopy: precisely the kind of terrain that dominates the northern walls of the Tennessee River Gorge and the deeper tributaries on the plateau rim. Foster Falls, Laurel-Snow State Natural Area (just outside the county), and the gorge floor all support breeding birds.

The Louisiana waterthrush (Parkesia motacilla) is a streambed warbler that walks rather than hops, bobbing its tail continuously as it hunts aquatic insect larvae on rocks in cold clear water. It arrives earlier than most warblers, typically mid-March in Marion County, and its loud ringing song carries over the noise of a tumbling creek. Louisiana waterthrush is one of the most reliable biological indicators of a stream that has not been silted or polluted; its presence on a plateau tributary is good news for the watershed.

The wood thrush (Hylocichla mustelina), cinnamon above with a white breast heavily spotted black, is the quintessential eastern-hardwood-forest songbird. Its three-part flutelike song at dawn and dusk from May through July is one of the signature sounds of the plateau. Populations have declined more than 60 percent since 1970, primarily due to forest fragmentation on the breeding grounds and habitat loss on Central American wintering grounds.

Other common breeding migrants of Marion forests include the scarlet tanager (brilliant red male with black wings), summer tanager (all red, oak-pine forests), hooded warbler (yellow with a black hood in males, understory specialist), Kentucky warbler (yellow with dark sideburns, deep-shade understory), ovenbird (teacher-teacher song, ground nester), black-throated green warbler, eastern wood-pewee, Acadian flycatcher, great crested flycatcher, and yellow-billed cuckoo. On plateau ridges at dusk, the whip-poor-will (Antrostomus vociferus) and chuck-will's-widow (Antrostomus carolinensis) call into the night.

Raptors

The bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) is the most visible conservation recovery in Marion County. DDT-era reproductive failure reduced the continental population to a few hundred breeding pairs by the 1960s; federal protection under the Endangered Species Act, the 1972 ban on DDT, and targeted restoration efforts allowed a slow comeback. Tennessee had no breeding pairs as recently as the early 1980s. Eagles are now year-round residents on Nickajack and Chickamauga reservoirs, with nests along the gorge and around Nickajack Dam. The species was delisted from the federal Endangered Species Act in 2007 and remains protected under the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act.

The osprey (Pandion haliaetus) is another reservoir raptor that returned through reintroduction; it breeds on Nickajack Lake and can be seen diving feet-first for fish. The peregrine falcon (Falco peregrinus), after its own pesticide-induced collapse and recovery, has been documented using cliff faces in the Tennessee River Gorge and nearby escarpments; confirmed active nest sites within Marion County itself are not currently well-documented in public sources, though the habitat is suitable.

Woodland raptors include the red-tailed hawk (Buteo jamaicensis) and red-shouldered hawk (Buteo lineatus, preferring wet bottomlands), the forest-interior Cooper's and sharp-shinned hawks (bird-hunting accipiters; sharp-shinned mostly a winter visitor here), and the summer-breeding broad-winged hawk (Buteo platypterus), whose fall migration forms river-following kettles of hundreds of birds over the gorge in mid-September. At night, the barred owl (“who cooks for you?”), great horned owl, and eastern screech owl call from the woods; the barn owl is a rare resident of open farmland and old barns.

Butterflies and moths

The zebra swallowtail (Eurytides marcellus) is one of the county's most striking butterflies: long tails, crisp black and white stripes, and two red spots near the base of the hindwing. Its caterpillars feed only on pawpaw (Asimina triloba), and the butterfly's abundance tracks the distribution of its host plant along creek bottoms and cove edges.

The monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) is both the most familiar butterfly in North America and one of the most at risk. The eastern North American population undergoes a multi-generational annual migration of up to 3,000 miles, from overwintering colonies in the oyamel fir forests of central Mexico to breeding grounds as far north as southern Canada, with the return trip taking four or five generations. The overwintering colonies contracted by more than 80 percent between the mid-1990s and the mid-2020s, driven primarily by glyphosate-induced loss of milkweed on agricultural lands across the U.S. Corn Belt. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed listing the monarch as threatened under the Endangered Species Act in December 2024. Marion County sits on the eastern-monarch southward flyway; September can see small numbers of migrants feeding on late-blooming goldenrod and aster along ridge tops and river edges. Common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) and butterfly milkweed (A. tuberosa) are the principal host plants for breeding monarchs in the region.

Marion's giant silk moths are unforgettable when encountered. The luna moth (Actias luna), a pale green moth with long hindwing tails and a wingspan up to four and a half inches, emerges from pupae under sweetgum, hickory, and walnut trees from April through July. Luna adults have no functional mouthparts, do not feed, and live about one week; their entire existence as an adult is dedicated to reproduction. The cecropia moth (Hyalophora cecropia), the largest moth in North America at up to six inches of wingspan, and the polyphemus moth (Antheraea polyphemus, with hindwing eyespots) also occur.

The eastern tiger swallowtail (Papilio glaucus) is the large yellow butterfly with black tiger stripes and tails that drifts along roadsides and through meadows all summer; females come in a yellow form and a black mimic form. Pipevine swallowtails (Battus philenor, iridescent blue, toxic from larval host plants), spicebush swallowtails, and black swallowtails are all common. Skippers, sulphurs, hairstreaks, and fritillaries round out the roster.

Cave fauna and the karst underworld

The limestone caves of the Sequatchie Valley and the Tennessee River Gorge slopes support a specialized cave-adapted (troglobitic) fauna that is invisible to most people. Aside from the Tennessee cave salamander already discussed, Marion County caves harbor or potentially harbor cave crayfish (Cambarus spp.), cave isopods, cave amphipods, various cave beetles (including some narrowly endemic species in adjacent counties), the southern cave fish (Typhlichthys subterraneus, eyeless and unpigmented), and the camel cricket. Most of these species are habitat-sensitive and strongly protected; cave access is restricted throughout the region to prevent disturbance and to limit the spread of white-nose syndrome to bats.

Where to see Marion County fauna

• Nickajack Cave boardwalk (TWRA Maple View Refuge) — gray bat emergence visible at dusk May through August; bald eagles year-round.
• Tennessee River Gorge Trust lands — cerulean warbler, worm-eating warbler, canebrake habitat, mussel reaches.
• Prentice Cooper State Forest — wild turkey, deer, bobcat sign, timber rattlesnake habitat, migrant songbirds in April and May.
• Foster Falls and the Fiery Gizzard Trail — rockhouse salamanders (green salamander historically), ovenbird, Louisiana waterthrush.
• Sequatchie River (accessible at Ketner's Mill, Whitwell, Dunlap) — smallmouth bass, longear sunfish, hellbender historical range, river otter sign.
• Nickajack Dam tailwater — winter bald eagles, bonneted cormorants, ospreys in summer.

Related

Flora & Plant Communities of Marion County →
Endemic & Notable Species →
Nickajack Cave & Dam →
Tennessee River Gorge →
The Sequatchie Valley →

Sources

• Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency
• TWRA — Eastern Hellbender
• USFWS — Gray Bat
• USFWS — Indiana Bat
• USFWS — Northern Long-eared Bat (2022 reclassification)
• USFWS — Eastern Hellbender (2024 proposed listing)
• USFWS — Monarch Butterfly (2024 proposed listing)
• Federal Register — Snail Darter Delisting (2022)
• USFWS ECOS — Royal Snail (Marstonia ogmorhaphe)
• USFWS — Sequatchie Caddisfly species page
• eBird — Marion County, Tennessee
• iNaturalist — Marion County, Tennessee
• Tennessee River Gorge Trust
• White-Nose Syndrome Response Team
• Tennessee Aquarium Conservation Institute (mussel and sturgeon recovery)