Grandfather Mountain is the newest spot to see fireflies flicker. How to buy tickets.
Scientists have found another rare species living on Grandfather Mountain, and this one practically has its name up in lights.
Photinus Carolinus — known as synchronous fireflies to tourists who travel far and stay up late to see them — may always have lived at Grandfather Mountain. But they were only officially discovered there in 2019, when N.C. State University entomologist Dr. Clyde Sorenson stayed overnight in a guest cottage on the mountain and encountered them on a walk outside.
Since then, he and other researchers have confirmed the fireflies’ presence, and this year, the mountain is inviting human guests to come and watch their nightly show.
Tickets go on sale May 23 for three nights of Grandfather Glows: Bioluminescent Evenings on June 26, June 29 and July 1.
The nonprofit Grandfather Mountain Stewardship Foundation, which now runs the mountaintop attraction that includes the Mile-High Swinging Bridge, nature museum and animal habitats, will sell 200 tickets for each night of this luminescent waltz.
Each event will run from 7 p.m. until 11 p.m., and tickets will cost $60 for adults and $35 for children. Events may be rescheduled for severe weather. Park naturalists will be on hand to provide educational programs and answer questions.
For more information, visit www.grandfather.com/fireflies.
The firefly mating ritual
For years, visitors have flocked to places in the mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee where synchronous and blue ghost fireflies are known to carry out their late spring-early summer mating ritual that results in a spectacular natural light show.
DuPont State Recreational Forest, in Henderson and Transylvania counties, and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, straddling the N.C.-Tennessee border, both now manage crowds that come to see the amorous insects. They also have been seen on trails in the Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest inside Nantahala National Forest in southwestern North Carolina.
The fireflies have a mating season that lasts two to four weeks in May and June, and it looks like an awkward party where the sexes have self-segregated, with the females in the grass and the males flying around a few feet off the ground. The males’ way of asking the girls to dance is to flash their lights — hundreds of fireflies, all at the same time — in hopes that a mate will flash back a welcome sign.
“There’s only a handful of species all around the world that do this, and for a long time, this particular species, the phenomenon of seeing large numbers of them synchronizing has been associated tightly with just a couple geographical areas,” Sorenson told the Stewardship Foundation. “But the species goes all the way from New York to Georgia. Where they have been most widely known and recognized for so long is at Elkmont in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. But that’s at 2,200 feet. Where I saw them (at Grandfather) was at 4,200 feet.”
This story was originally published May 4, 2022 at 12:32 PM.
