The Nashville Zoo at Grassmere - Highlighted Habitats

Highlighted Habitats

Clouded Leopard Cubs: Premiered September 4

Nashville Zoo has been wild with excitement over the May birth of three clouded leopard cubs Luk, Chet and Sita. Guests can find the cubs in Critter Encounters, just a short walk away from the adult clouded leopards on Bamboo Trail.

The cubs are a part of an ongoing conservation partnership with the Thailand Clouded Leopard Consortium. Parents, Arun and Jing Jai, were one of two pairs of clouded leopards that came to the United States last year as a part of the Consortium’s conservation efforts. The birth of the three cubs introduces new genes into the American population for the first time in 20 years.

Female cub Sita will be leaving Nashville Zoo on Wednesday, October 28 to be paired with a male cub at the National Zoo’s Conservation & Research Center in Front Royal, VA.

Back to the Top

Damara Zebra: Premiered March 7

A herd of Damara zebras has joined the Zoo's eland and ostriches! Damara zebras have lighter, brown-colored stripes in addition to the usual black and white. Different zebra species have different types of stripes, but each zebra has a unique stripe pattern, like human fingerprints. In the wild, a zebra’s stripes actually help protect it. When zebras group together, lions and other predators cannot easily pick out one zebra to attack among the myriad of stripes.

Back to the Top

Gibbon Islands

Considered the crown jewel of the Zoo's Entry Village, Gibbon Islands is two beautifully landscaped hills surrounded by only a 4-foot deep moat, giving guests an unobstructed view of the island's swinging primates (like most primate species, gibbons will not enter the water, so the moat acts as a natural barrier).

A pair of white-cheeked gibbons and a pair of siamangs reside on Gibbon Islands. The male siamang, Bahari, recently made his island debut as the final stage in his introduction to his new home and mate, Muppet, the Zoo's resident female siamang of 16 years.

Come hear these two singing, swinging primates on Gibbon Islands, and be sure to check out their white-cheeked neighbors while you’re there!

Back to the Top

African Wild Dog

With long slender legs and a thin body, the African Wild Dog is often referred to as the African Painted Dog because of its unique coat patterns. Commonly found in grasslands, savannahs and open woodlands, the species is widely distributed across the African plains and in the mountainous area south of the Sahara Desert.

African Wild Dog’s live in packs with one dominant breeding pair. The species has one of the most unique forms of communication. Gruff barks and growling express alarm, whining signals distress and high-pitched twittering is heard during pre-hunt rallies and when competing for food.

Nashville Zoo’s African Wild Dogs are on exhibit in the former home of the Giant Anteaters. The anteaters have moved off exhibit due to the cool weather.

Back to the Top

Critter Encounters

Critter Encounters is an interactive exhibit where guests can experience up close a variety of animals, including alpacas, goats and donkeys.

This special exhibit now has even more critters for you to encounter! Nashville Zoo recently added four baby African pygmy goats and three young camels.

Keepers are on-hand to help small children have an opportunity to touch the animals, but our critters also have an "animals only" area they can scoot into when they have had enough of little hands. (Please note that not all animals are able to be touched.)

While in Critter Encounters, please remember to hide your Zoo map and other paper goods. Our goats like to nibble on those items!

Critter Encounters was made possible by generous donations from Franklin Industries, Inc. and Tennessee's BEST college savings programs.

Back to the Top

African Crested Porcupine

Nashville Zoo has some new prickly pals - two male African crested porcupines.

The African crested porcupine is the largest porcupine in sub-Saharan Africa. They are characterized by quills along the head, nape and back that can be raised into a crest. Sturdier quills along their sides and the back halves of their bodies are used for defensive purposes. These porcupines have poor eyesight but an excellent sense of smell. African crested porcupines are also excellent swimmers, so you might catch them taking a dip in their pool.

The porcupine exhibit replaced the golden eagle habitat located near Bamboo Trail. Nashville Zoo’s male golden eagle recently passed away due to geriatric issues. The remaining female was sent to Indiana’s Potowatami Zoo to be with a companion eagle.

Back to the Top

Unseen New World

The Wildest Things You’ve Never Seen!

Hop on over to the Unseen New World, and see our six new exhibits!

In connection with Year of the Frog and worldwide amphibian conservation efforts, Nashville Zoo opened six new frog exhibits.

The new exhibit space, located at the doors to the aviary in the Unseen New World, summarizes the plight amphibians are facing. Two threatened amphibians, the golden frog and the Puerto Rican crested toad, are highlighted in this new exhibit space.

The strange, the scary and the scaly made their first appearance at Nashville Zoo when the Unseen New World opened in 1998. This habitat includes approximately 75 species of reptiles, amphibians, insects, mammals and birds. Anacondas, Gila monsters, rattlesnakes, turtles and caimen are a few of the more than 250 unusual residents.

The habitat space is broken into three primary geographic regions to emphasize the relationships between the animals and their native homes. These regions are North America, Central and South America, and the West Indies.

The Unseen New World focuses on the many characteristics and behaviors that species use to hide from both predators and potential prey in the wild. Some of the physical characteristics that make these animals unseen are camouflage (physical traits that resemble their surroundings, such as chameleons) and mimicry (physical traits that resemble those of a poisonous or fierce animal, such as the false water cobra).

Behavioral traits that make these animals a challenge to find in the wild include: imitation (such as the alligator snapping turtle whose shell resembles a rock when they lay still on the lake bottom), burrowing (such as centipedes), and nocturnal lifestyle (such as fruit bats, maroon-eyed tree frogs and bushmaster snakes). Another unfortunate reason why many of these species are categorized as unseen is their rarity, due to habitat loss, predation and human incursion.

Back to the Top

Grassmere Historic Farm

The Grassmere property is rich with history and a perfect spot for Nashville Zoo. The property and Historic Home date back to the early 1800s and were parts of a working farm until the middle of the 20th century. Just as the Home and gardens represent life at this time, we hope that the barnyard will continue your trip back in time to an earlier Nashville.

Records from the Farm's early days were used to re-create a barnyard with animals that might have called Grassmere their home in the 1880s, including: horses, chickens and cattle.

The Farm has a Percheron draft horse. Percheron draft horses were the true "work horses" of the Farm. These horses were used in the fields to pull plows and to work the land. In a time before the introduction of mechanized farm equipment, these amazing animals were crucial to farmers’ success. In contrast, Tennessee walking horses were popular for riding, driving and light farmwork. Their unique "running walk" is inherited and cannot be taught. These horses would have been used at Grassmere to inspect fields and pull buggies as well as for short trips to Nashville.

Across the bridge from the barnyard is the chicken coop. We are not sure of the original placement of the chicken yard, but it was probably a bit further from the gardens and house, close to the former barn site. Chickens were a staple of farm life used for their eggs and for Sunday dinner.

The Farm has one cow and one steer, but in earlier years, Grassmere had a large group of cattle, which eventually dwindled as the primary focus shifted from livestock to cash crops and land cultivation.

Grassmere Farm is fortunate to have been adopted by the Master Gardeners of Davidson County as one of their ongoing projects. They have provided manpower, resources and expertise to transform the areas around the Home to their former beauty and bounty.

Back to the Top

Bamboo Trail

Bamboo Trail offers six exhibits displaying animals found in bamboo forests across the globe: clouded leopards, red pandas, ring-tailed lemurs, Schmidt’s guenons, cassowaries and rhinoceros hornbills.

Bamboo Trail also offers a koi pond, viewing shelter and a bamboo garden displaying a wide variety of bamboo found around the world.

Nashville Zoo would like to thank the generous sponsors who made Bamboo Trail possible: Courtney Daily for sponsoring the Schmidt's Guenon exhibit, The Beaman Family for sponsoring the Clouded Leopard Exhibit, Frank Garrison for sponsoring the koi pond, and Rusty, Sandy, Winston & Chase Siebert for sponsoring the Viewing Shelter.

Back to the Top