We've had a few recent reports of periodical cicadas calling at Look Rock Campground and the White Oak Sinks area (here, here and here). Periodical cicadas (Magicicada spp.) come in two flavors, 13-year and 17-year. They're organized into broods that emerge en masse in certain years, like our raucous 17-year Brood X emergence in 2021. But localized warm/cold spells and other factors can cause members of a brood to emerge early or late. We're not scheduled for a brood emergence here this year, so anybody out now is considered off-year, and that makes them extra interesting for science! They are likely either Brood XIV 17-year cicadas which will emerge in 2025 or Brood XIX 13-year cicadas which will emerge in 2024 (more info here).

We need your help documenting this rare phenomenon

If you're in the park in the next couple of weeks, listen for the whirring of cicadas up in the trees. It's too early in the year for the annual cicadas that we'll hear later in the summer, so any cicada whirring should be these periodicals. Here's an example of what to listen for: link to audio recording, but again any cicada whirring in the next few weeks is of interest.

If you hear cicadas, please record their calls through iNaturalist

In iNaturalist click the Observe camera icon on iPhone or the green plus sign on Android to create a new observation and tap the microphone icon to record a sound. Try to get a clear, 30+ second audio recording and make sure that the location and date fields are filled in on the observation. You can put "Magicicada" for the ID (What did you see? field) or just leave it blank. Feel free to make as many observations as you'd like: multiple observations in the same area and/or observations of calling in different spots.

Let me know if you have any questions: will@dlia.org. Thanks to @weecorbie for the brood information and to @harrier and @cypselurus for posting observations from White Oak Sinks!

// Will Kuhn (@willkuhn), director of science and research, Discover Life in America (dlia.org)

iNaturalist users have contributed over 100,000 species observations in Great Smoky Mountains National Park!

Marking a milestone

Congratulations to @hollycoates for making the 100,000th iNaturalist observation in Great Smoky Mountains National Park: an eastern hemlock tree along the North Carolina side of HWY 441! Huzzah!

So far, 4,851 different species have been observed in GSMNP, including 1,815 different insect species, 1,492 plants, 916 fungi, and 171 arachnids. Among these are 92 species that are new records for the Smokies, first documented through iNaturalist.

GSMNP currently ranks #5 in the National Park Service system in iNaturalist observations, users, and species. However, there are a whopping 21,380 species documented in the park so far through the All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory, likely making it number one in total known species richness.

The very first observation in the Smokies was submitted by @tonyg on August 15, 2011 of a black-bellied salamander in Cades Cove, but @gcsnelling wins the prize for the earliest-dated observation: a Carolina legionary ant specimen from Cades Cove dated April 30, 1939 (just 5 years after the park was chartered)!

A special thanks to some top contributors...

In total, 7,183 observers have recorded life in the Smokies via iNaturalist and 4,695 users have helped identify them. Incredible!

These folks have contributed 400+ observations: @reallifeecology @jduffy @anneturner @mcaterino @akfishmom @graham_montgomery @dakilaledesma @annkatrinrose @travelaunt @matthewherron @drbh2o @dunhamkc @ladyjanaye @kemper @brandoncorder @wildlandblogger @b_georgic @pinus_taeda @anaturalist68 @olliff_oil @cdance @joeyshaw @llmatt76 @barefootchris @abmorris @spyingnaturalist @pwdeacon

These folks have made at least 400 identifications: @mjpapay @annkatrinrose @davidenrique @trscavo @syrherp @jtuttle @choess @tsn @eraskin @rynxs @ddennism @polemoniaceae @lisamh @jak2113 @pynklynx @graytreefrog @maxallen @d2b @janetwright @wdvanhem @arethusa @traylorc @smithjg1954 @twpierson @waterfallrich @afid @silverwolfcc @johnplischke @mmmmbugs @dogwoodvalley

Thanks to you and everyone else who has helped us reach this exciting milestone!

Help us get to 200K!

iNaturalist usage in the Smokies has skyrocketed from just 4 users at the end of 2011, to 3,800 by the end of 2020, to now more than 7,100 users. We at DLiA are excited to see so many folks contributing to science in the Smokies and hope to get more of the park's millions of annual visitors in on the fun!

You can help record life in Great Smoky Mountains National Park by simply using iNaturalist to record the life you see during your next visit. Find out how we use iNaturalist observations to help the park by visiting our Smokies Most Wanted page. If you're up for a challenge, you can seek out and document species listed in our Smokies Most Wanted guide. Any observation you make within the bounds of the Smokies helps us learn about and protect Smokies life!

• Smokies Most Wanted
• Smokies Most Wanted guide

// Will Kuhn (@willkuhn), director of science and research, Discover Life in America (dlia.org)

Observations submitted by iNaturalist users over the past few years have helped document a slew of new species in Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

It started with a search

Our team at DLiA recently worked with Smokies park staff to search through the 71,000+ observations that iNaturalist users like yourself have made in the Smokies. We wanted to see if there were any verifiable records of animals, plants, and other species that we hadn't recorded before in the Smokies. To date, we know of 21,302 species that call Smokies their home, after nearly 24 years of studying biodiversity in the park. So far, our search has turned up 77 species that are new records for the park, and we're just getting started!

Who are these species?

Among these are 33 different kinds of wasps, 15 types of flies, 10 beetles, and many others. They also include a non-arthropod species: the green beetle hanger (complex Herperomyces virescens) is an external parasite of the exotic Asian ladybird beetle (Harmonia axyridis).

• Full list of new records

Who made these discoveries?

These discoveries were made by 40 iNaturalist observers (see full list below). These include DLiA affiliates (@akfishmom @crassquatch @elfinjulie @chuck522 @reallifeecology and myself @willkuhn), park staff (@calliaelise), researchers working in the park (@derhennen @graham_montgomery and @mcaterino), and many, many fantastic community scientists (@acornparker @anaturalist68 @andrewcore @b_kelly @brirosa @chasa @cholmesphoto @denisewill @eattaway92 @edlickey @eraskin @gab-e @jason374 @kemper @ladyjanaye @leicesterlibrary @lizpatel @mmcmasters @moosegoose47 @mountainmaddix @mylesofscience @naturalista1 @noorabu @scottranger @sg17 @spyingnaturalist @station50images @tiggrx @walkingstick2 and @worldturngreen). Kudos to you all and thanks to everyone who has made an iNaturalist observation in the park!

Who identified these observations?

Some 75 iNaturalist users helped identify these species. We'd like to give a special shoutout to the following people who made several key IDs: @calconey @megachile @ceiseman @lotteryd @matthias22 and @jeongyoo. Thanks to you and all of the other community scientists who made these findings possible!

You can help make more discoveries like these!

You can help by 'iNatting' the life you encounter every time you visit the park. Encourage your family and friends to do the same. Find out more at our Smokies Most Wanted page.

Up for a challenge? Check out our Smokies Most Wanted Guide on iNaturalist--a list of species for which we're especially seeking more observations. The list includes common native species, some exotic species we're keeping an eye on, things the park wants to know more about (like cutleaf coneflower (sochan)), and lots more. We periodically rotate out well-documented species on this list and with under-studied species, so check back occasionally to see what's new.

• Smokies Most Wanted Guide

How do your observations make a difference?

This iNaturalist project (Smokies ATBI) captures any observation made within the bounds of Great Smoky Mountains National Park. We use these datapoints in our mission to learn all we can about the biodiversity of the Smokies as part of the All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory that we coordinate in the park.

Every time you make an observation there, you expand our knowledge of what organisms live in the park, where and when they occur, their rarity, and their interconnections with other Smokies life. Specifically, here are some of the myriad ways we use these data:

• to find new places where rare, endemic and common species live in the park
• to find new records for species that researchers are specifically targeting
• to track phenology of animals and plants
• to record new species in the park
• to track and monitor exotic plants, insects, and other species
• to map life across the Smokies via Atlas of the Smokies
• and more!

More to come...

We are slowly working through thousands of additional iNaturalist observations looking for new discoveries. We expect to confirm many new park records in the near future. We also plan to repeat this exercise regularly as folks like you add new datapoints to iNaturalist.

// Will Kuhn, director of science and research, Discover Life in America (dlia.org)

This journal post was adapted from a December 2021 article in the Asheville Citizen Times. Read the full article here.