Tennessee has 37 records of the hairy-tailed mole, and the named-place records that exist, 7 at Great Smoky Mountains National Park and 1 at Cherokee National Forest, both come from the state’s easternmost mountains.
A mountain mole at the southern edge of its range
This mole needs well-drained, loose soil under hardwood forest, cooler ground than the more familiar eastern mole prefers. Tennessee sits at the southern edge of its range, so instead of turning up statewide the way the eastern mole does, it’s confined almost entirely to the cool, high-elevation forest soils of the Unakas, the Smokies, and Cherokee National Forest.
Shared tunnels and a taste for earthworms
It digs shallow surface tunnels marked by raised ridges of pushed-up soil, and unlike many mole species, it tolerates neighbors well enough that several individuals can maintain loosely connected burrow networks in the same patch of ground. It feeds mainly on earthworms and grubs found along those tunnels.
Status in Tennessee
NatureServe ranks the hairy-tailed mole S3, Vulnerable, and lists it as native to Tennessee. USGS NAS doesn’t list it as nonindigenous in the state.
