Coordinated firefly display is the centerpiece of this weekend's PA Firefly Festival

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Coordinated firefly display is the centerpiece of this weekend's PA Firefly Festival

Patrick Varine | Thursday, June 21, 2018 6:01 p.m.

Radim Schreiber/Fireflyexperience.org

Above, synchronous fireflies can be seen in this 2014 photo taken in the Smoky Mountain National Park in Tennessee.

Venture deep enough into the right parts of the Allegheny National Forest over the next few weeks, and you can see a display unlike any other.

Colonies of beetles, called synchronous fireflies, don't just flash their biochemical lights. They do it in unison, creating a coordinated display.

Synchronous fireflies, first discovered in the forest just a few years ago, will highlight the sixth annual PA Firefly Festival Saturday at Black Caddis Ranch in Kellettville, Forest County.

"People come from all over the world," said festival secretary Peggy Butler. "We've had people from every continent except Antarctica."

The synchronous firefly is uncommon, found in only a few places in the U.S., including the Allegheny National Forest and the Smoky Mountain region of Tennessee.

Below, video of synchronous firefly displays in the Smoky Mountain National Park in Tennessee.

The festival itself will include music, food, children's activities and more, but the most popular part is the firefly tours, which sold out weeks in advance of the festival.

As the tours became more popular, organizers scaled back the festival events in favor of more nights doing firefly tours.

"We've taken it for granted growing up here that everyone has (fireflies), but west of the Rockies, they have daytime fireflies, but there any of what we'd call 'lightning bugs,'" Butler said.

This year's festival runs from noon to 10 p.m., with entertainment from noon to 7:30 p.m. and children's activities from noon to 5 p.m.

This year's festival will also feature a presentation from Canadian company Lumican, focused on the light pollution that has reduced firefly habitat throughout North America and on ways to lessen its impact.

For more, see PAfireflyfestival.org .

Patrick Varine is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach him at 724-850-2862, pvarine@tribweb.com or via Twitter @MurrysvilleStar.

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Firefly facts

• The firefly — officially named "Photuris pennsylvanica" — is Pennsylvania's state insect.

• The insect is primarily nocturnal.

• To find fireflies, look for a dark place with vegetation, like an open field that hasn't been sprayed with pesticides.

• The insects prefer damp soil because they live buried in dirt as larvae during the winter.

• The greenish-yellow light glows from the firefly's abdomen, the result of a chemical reaction.

• Fireflies use their light as a warning to predators at night and as part of a mating ritual.

• The glowing portion of fireflies was once used in medical research to track proteins in researching cystic fibrosis, cancer and multiple sclerosis. Now those materials are made synthetically.

• Firefly season in Pennsylvania usually runs through the mid-summer.