Synchronous Fireflies

Great Smoky Mountains National Park has had the market cornered on synchronous fireflies for years. But thanks to a relatively recent discovery, the Blue Ridge Mountains just might give it a run for its money.


The Photinus carolinus is a species of firefly that each year, typically in the spring, put on a synchronous light display in order to find a mate. They are the only species in America whose individuals can synchronize their flashing light patterns.

CREDIT: JIM MAGRUDER

For decades, it was believed that the Smokies had the only population of synchronous fireflies in U.S. And while synchronous fireflies were eventually identified in Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and in two other parts of Tennessee, the Smokies have always gotten the glory. In fact, the annual viewing event at the Elkmont Campground in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, is so popular that the National Park Service instituted a lottery system for tickets.

So, you can imagine how surprised Dr. Clyde Sorenson, a professor of entomology at N.C. State University, was by what he saw when he spent the night on Grandfather Mountain in June 2019.

"I noticed them immediately by their flash pattern—they were synchronous. By 10 p.m. there were hundreds of them. I walked up and down the roads and they were all through the woods. It thrilled me to death," Sorenson told the Asheville Citizen-Times.  TO READ MORE ABOUT THESE FIREFLIES, CLICK HERE...