Great Smoky Mountains National Park
National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior
SMOKIES GUIDE The Official Newspaper of the Smokies • Spring 2026
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Spotted salamanders prefer to breed in vernal pools that appear only after heavy spring rains and are free of fish that would prey on the developing eggs. Photo by Erik Atwell.
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Words with a Ranger Welcome to Great Smoky Mountains National Park! As the park’s supervisory ecologist, it’s my job to help with the variety of research, data management, resource inventories, and long-term monitoring programs going on in the Smokies at any given time. Right now, some of these include long-term monitoring of vegetation and aquatic invertebrates as well as inventories of special interest species such as ramps and hellbenders. Occasionally, I help our park entomologist Becky Nichols with aquatic invertebrate sampling. I had a wonderful time last year looking for dragonflies in Hazel Creek! My career with the Smokies began about 30 years ago, shortly after completing my master’s degree in forestry at the University of Continued on page 8
Underwater, Springtime Explodes with Color Wherever you look, it’s a season of change
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hile wildflowers and birdsong proclaim spring’s arrival aboveground, an equally dramatic transformation takes place under the water. For most of the park’s 70-plus species of fish, springtime is breeding season, and it’s a colorful affair. Most fish species can see color, so to attract mates, males will exchange the more muted color patterns they wear during the rest of the year for vibrant displays of orange, yellow, and green. Other species seek to impress female fish with their construction skills. Using their mouths to move one stone at a time, river chubs and central stonerollers build nests out of pebbles on the streambed, where females deposit their eggs. Other species use these structures too, including warpaint shiners, Tennessee shiners, and saffron shiners.
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Fish aren’t the only aquatic creatures that are busy in the springtime. Many of the park’s 31 species of salamanders and 13 species of frogs and toads lay their eggs during the early part of the season. These jelly-like masses can be found in shallow water throughout the park, waiting for warmer weather to hatch, often in temporary ponds known as vernal pools. Heavy rains fill them in the spring, and they dry up later in the year, after the young amphibians have grown past their aquatic stages of development. Some species travel considerable distances, up to half of a mile, in search of pools to lay their eggs. With more than 22,000 species of life found here thus far, Great Smoky Mountains National Park is full of surprises in every season. Field guides available at park visitor centers and the free iNaturalist app are both great ways to learn more while you explore. GreatSmoky MountainsNPS
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PARKING TAG REQUIRED! Parking in the Smokies for more than 15 minutes requires a valid parking tag (annual tag pictured). For more info, scan code with camera app
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