Craighead Caverns (Pleistocene to of the United States)

Where: Monroe County, Tennessee (35.5° N, 84.4° W: paleocoordinates 35.5° N, 84.4° W)

• coordinate based on nearby landmark

• outcrop-level geographic resolution

When: Late/Upper Pleistocene to Late/Upper Pleistocene (0.1 - 0.0 Ma)

• age unclear, but bones are "fresher" than the "more heavily mineralized," clearly Pleistocene material from Kyle Quarry

• group of beds-level stratigraphic resolution

Environment/lithology: cave; red, sandy claystone

• bones are from "red cave earth," a lithology described elsewhere as "a sort of earth, clay mixed with very fine sand, of... brick-red color"

Size class: macrofossils

Preservation: mold/impression

Collected by J. Kyker, C. Hicks. G. G. Simpson in 1939, 1940

Collection methods: surface (in situ),

• bones were found "partially buried"

Primary reference: G. G. Simpson. 1941. Discovery of jaguar bones and footprints in a cave in Tennessee. American Museum Novitates 1131:1-12 [J. Alroy/J. Alroy]more details

Purpose of describing collection: paleoecologic analysis

PaleoDB collection 93252: authorized by John Alroy, entered by John Alroy on 09.01.2010

Creative Commons license: CC BY (attribution)

Taxonomic list

Show authors, comments, and common names
Mammalia
 Artiodactyla - Cervidae
Cervus canadensis
Cervus canadensis Erxleben 1777 elk
multiple bones of one individual found near the jaguar jaw
 Carnivora - Felidae
Panthera onca
Panthera onca Linnaeus 1758 jaguar
jaw and skull found in separate passages