RED HOUSE, N.Y. — Nearly everyone has seen fireflies in their backyards or in the fields in the summer months.
Imagine a lot of fireflies firing up their lanterns all at once. They’re called synchronous fireflies and they are in our backyard too — in a couple areas in Allegany State Park as well as the Allegheny National Forest in Pennsylvania.
After the rare and unusual synchronous firefly, or Photinus carolinus, was found in the Branch Creek area of the National Forest in 2012, members of the Allegany State Park environmental educators and naturalists surveyed similar habitat in the state park and located populations in two different area.
Prior to the discovery in the Allegheny National Forest, the synchronous firefly was thought to exist only in the Great Smoky Mountains and in Malaysia.
Park naturalist Adele Wellman has been leading synchronous firefly walks for the past couple of years. Nearly 30 people gathered for one of her walks last Thursday on France Brook Road off ASP Route 2 near the entrance to Camp 12.
“They are the same fireflies found in the Great Smoky Mountains,” Wellman told the group. The reason they hadn’t been spotted in the state park is because “most of us don’t wander into the dark, scary parts of the park at night.”
The synchronous fireflies in Allegany State Park are active for a short time — from late June to mid-July. “The warmer the better,” Wellman said. The tree-covered dirt road to Camp 12 was an ideal place to find them.
“You identify them by their flash pattern,” Wellman told the group as they walked in darkness toward the area the synchronous fireflies are known to be. The same way fireflies identify each other.
“They’re not doing it for us,” Wellman said of the firefly show. “They are looking for a mate.”
Some people think there are fewer fireflies around than in the past because of the proliferation of light which can make the hunt for a mate even more difficult. Insecticides may also play a role.
Fireflies have a roughly 5 percent chance of meeting a mate of their same species. There are 2,000 known species of fireflies in the world and about 125 different species in the park, according to Wellman.
“They find each other with their flashes,” she explained.
The male synchronous fireflies have evolved to flash together over an area to make it easier for the females to spot them.
In the woods along the dirt road are several different species of fireflies. The elusive synchronous firefly is the one everyone is looking for.
The next synchronous firefly walk is tonight at 9:30 at site 29 on France Brook Road. Also on Thursday at 9:30 p.m. at the Tornado Blowdown Area at Site 68 on ASP Route 1 between Red House and Quaker.
(Contact reporter Rick Miller at rmiller@oleantimesherald.com. Follow him on Twitter, @RMillerOTH)
