Butterfly Hunt Finds Some 700 Species

G A T L I N B U R G, Tenn., Aug. 28 -- In one sweeping 24-hour period, a teamof top biologists collected and identified 706 species of moths andbutterflies in the Great Smoky Mountains.

The scientists estimated there could be hundreds more stilluncounted.

The so-called All Taxa-Biodiversity Inventory in the Smokies — ascientific enterprise never completed anywhere else on the planet —so far has found everything from new salamanders to earthworms measuring 18 inches in length.

It is just the most recent contribution to a massive effortbegun in 1998 to catalog every plant and animal in thehalf-million-acre Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

“I think we have every reason to be very, very happy with whatwe were able to accomplish,” an exhausted David Wagner of theUniversity of Connecticut told 20 experts he brought here fromaround the country. “This has never been done on this scalebefore.”

Knowing What’s Out There

Most of the plants and mammals are known in the 60-year-old parkon the Tennessee-North Carolina border. So scientists haveconcentrated, in their own specialties, on smaller species — deermice, algae, fungi and flies, so far.

“If one purpose of our national parks is to protectbiodiversity and our natural resources, we need to know what theyare and where they are,” said Brian Scholtens, a College ofCharleston professor and coordinator for the study’s umbrellaorganization, Discover Life in America.

“This is a start, in one park, to know what is in it,” hesaid.

The National Park Service hopes the Smokies study, which couldtake up to 15 years to complete, will become a model for otherparks.

“We are still in what we call the pilot years,” Smokiesentomologist Becky Nichols said. “We are still getting some of theprotocols ironed out.”

The value of the undertaking is providing park officials withthe information to gauge and manage the health of the habitat.