Fireflies synchronized light show season starts in Great Smoky Mountains national park.

If you have been in the Smokies the past few weeks, you would have seen that the lightning bugs have been flashing brighter and glowing more and more every night and in the Great Smoky Mountains national park synchronized firefly season has begun!

While all fireflies are a miracle of God's creation, one of the firefly beetles found in the south Appalachian Smoky Mountains are even more amazing compared to any other firefly and will delight everyone young or old. What has been a well-kept secret has grown to become one of the huge tourist attractions each spring in the Great Smoky Mountains national park.

Not only has firefly watching in the Smokies become a huge happening drawing in about 10,000 visitors to watch a light show that lasts about 3 weeks, other events have sprung up around the synchronous lightning bugs and the fantastic experience of watching them in the GSMNP.

The All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory project going on in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park is a project performed by scientists, researches and volunteers that are searching for every species living in the park for the world's largest research program called "Discover Life in America". This project has already identified more than 17,000 species in the park, 6,500 of which we did not know they were here and an astonishing 900 of which are brand new to science!

The great folks at "Discover Life in America" will be hosting a firefly event this year to coincide with the peak firefly season. The Smokies Firefly Events will take place in Gatlinburg Tennessee on June 12th at the Nantahala Outdoor Center Great Outpost just outside the GSMNP entrance. There will be firefly information, an insect zoo, kids activities, music with Captain Firefly, art, a secret "dark" room to "bioluminate" and food and drink vendors.

However, the big questions remain such as: What makes the fireflies in the Great Smoky Mountains so special?

While all of God's creatures are special, 13 of the 14 species of fireflies that inhabit the Great Smoky Mountains national park and the surrounding southern Appalachian mountains and foothills are more run of the mill creatures that can through a miracle in nature produce their own light in various shades of yellow, green and even blue to attract a mate, 1 species is even more unique.

The most unusual firefly named Photinus Carolinus is able to synchronize its light with other lightning bugs around it. The light it the firefly gives off called bioluminescence is a chemical reaction occurring in its abdomen with a self-produced enzyme and oxygen.

The Photinus Carolinus synchronized light starts as random pulses and builds up to where large groups of beetles all flash together and then suddenly, everything goes black. Just as quickly as it stopped, the whole process starts all over again.

Where can you find the synchronized fireflies in the Smokies? The firefly beetles that synchronize can be found over much of Smokies as long as the conditions are correct, but to be really impressive, you need to have large population densities of fireflies which means that you need the right conditions. The best conditions where the fireflies thrive is along slow moving water with lush plant growth.

The perfect conditions where fireflies thrive is along one of the most popular hiking trails located in the Elkmont section of the Great Smoky Mountains national park. This hiking trail is also large enough to accommodate the 1,000 people a night that show up to see the event and smooth enough for people to be safe walking the trail in the dark.

When is the best time to see the fireflies in the GSMNP? Obviously, the best time to see the fireflies is at night, but the peak of the firefly season in the Smoky Mountains is around the second week in June. Since soil temperature dictates when they will emerge from the ground and thus when they will be ready to mate, each year the exact best date to see the lightning bugs in the Smoky Mountains changes.

Since so many people come to the firefly show in the GSMNP, the park service closes Elkmont for a year and takes visitors in by trolley from the Sugarlands Visitors Center near Gatlinburg starting 7 pm for a $1 per person round trip. Once the parking lot fills, or it is 9 pm, the trolleys stop running to Elkmont.

This year the trolleys will run June 5th 2010 until June 13th 2010. If you miss the trolleys because you came to the Smokies a week or so late, do not despair, you still will get a great free light show along the Little River Hiking Trail!

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Fireflies synchronized light show season starts in Great Smoky Mountains national park.

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