The latest Pennsylvania Firefly Festival newsletter provides an update on firefly education and research--

2023 PA Firefly Season

Now that the 11th Pennsylvania Firefly Festival events have concluded and the firefly season has ended we wanted to reflect on the 2023 season and share some plans for 2024. 

First, we introduced a lottery system for the registration as a test.  We had roughly 3,000 people apply for one of the 130 available spots. 

We had only favorable feedback from the patrons that this system was a fair and equitable solution to our supply and demand problem.

The PAFF organization continues to be committed to providing safe, sustainable, and enriching firefly tourism, so the lottery will remain in place.

The 2023 firefly season started with a bit of delay probably due to the early summer drought conditions, but the rains began the week before the festival creating the hot and humid conditions that fireflies love. 

The Synchronous Firefly season was the longest we've documented in our 12 years of monitoring.  We saw the Synchros well into the second week of July. 

We also noticed locally the emergence of another impressive twinkling species, Photuris hebes, aka the Christmas Lights fireflies. 

After July 4th, we noticed them filling every tree from bottom to top each night after 10 pm into the last week of July.  It was truly "Christmas in July"! 

We also had record numbers of exhibits, trained guides and volunteers. 

The exhibits included the Audubon Society, Seneca Rocks Chapter, Bucknell University students, DCNR Forestry; Dark Skies Association, Pittsburgh Chapter; Mass Audubon Firefly Watch; PA Wilds; Sierra Club, Moshannon Chapter; Tionesta Lake, US Army Corps of Engineers; US Forest Service, Allegheny National Forest. 

Presentations by Don Salvatore and "The Secret Lives of Fireflies" and Ibyinka Alao, "My Fireflies" and the live music performance by Matt Miskie entertained the audiences. 

Our corps of trained guides led the patrons and campers expertly and safely through the habitats. 

The campers, festival patrons, and private tours were treated to a variety of firefly species displays including the Chinese Lanterns, Synchronous, and  Christmas Lights fireflies. 

All of these events and tours are not possible without our volunteers who do everything from providing meals, setting and cleaning up, staffing the merchandise table, and leading bird walks. 

We thank all of our friends and family for their support and dedication to the fireflies.

As for 2024, the PAFF board is busy making plans to host the 12th Annual PA Firefly Festival on June 28th and 29th. 

The other firefly event dates including the Glow & Know Campouts and Locals Night will be announced in early 2024.

Luminaries Of The Firefly World

There are many scientists that have contributed to our knowledge of bioluminescence and bioluminescent organisms since the late nineteenth century.

One of the most prolific of these luminaries was Edmund Newton Harvey.  Harvey is generally acknowledged as one of the leading authorities in the field of bioluminescence.

E. N. Harvey was born in 1887 in Germantown, Pennsylvania, the only son of four children of a Presbyterian minister. Harvey demonstrated an early interest in the natural world collecting “every conceivable natural object” as he later recalled.

He received his undergraduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1909 and pursued graduate studies in zoology at Columbia University.

Several years of field work around the globe occurred before obtaining his PhD and joining the faculty of Princeton University as a full professor in 1919.

Dr. Harvey gained recognition as a stimulating lecturer and for inspiring students with his boundless energy and enthusiasm. In particular, he initiated courses in cell physiology and biochemistry, which were rarely offered at that time in the United States.

Dr. Harvey’s greatest scientific achievement was the study of bioluminescence and bioluminescent organisms which began in 1913 with an expedition to Australia’s Great Barrier Reef.

Later that year he authored a paper entitled “On the chemical nature of the luminous material of the firefly.” 

Dr. Harvey married a marine biologist, Ethyl Browne, in 1916 and during their honeymoon in Japan became fascinated with the bioluminescent ostracod known as the sea firefly.

Harvey had large quantities of bioluminescent material sent to his Princeton laboratory for study. For the next thirty years, his laboratory became the center for the study of the chemical nature of bioluminescence and was known worldwide for discoveries made there.

Dr. Harvey wrote four books and over 100 scientific papers on bioluminescence during his career that established his work (and Princeton) as the center of bioluminescent study.

Among his many discoveries was that light emitting substances known as luciferins and enzymes known as luciferases were species specific and not interchangeable. Dr. Harvey also contributed his expertise to other scientific fields as well.

He helped Alfred Loomis develop the centrifuge microscope in the 1920’s and in 1935 he assisted Dr. Loomis with electroencephalography (measurement and recording of brain wave activity).

During World War II, he worked on decompression sickness and wound ballistics.

Dr. Harvey’s later life consisted of writing/researching numerous papers on bioluminescence. He also received recognition for his scientific contributions by being elected to many scientific organizations.

A firefly species was named after him (Photinus harveyi) as well as a luminous bacterium, crustacean, and centipede.

Dr. Harvey died of heart failure in 1959 at the age of 71 at Woods Hole, MA. However, his legacy as the “Dean of Bioluminescence” continues to live on in the scientific world.

[Written by Jeffrey Calta PAFF Board Member.]

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The firefly is Pennsylvania’s official state insect.  Read more here.

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[Posted: September 5, 2023]

9/11/2023