Ping Wong

A lot of these species, many of them, they flash 20 minutes a night, and that's it.

And they only live two weeks.

So if you're not standing in the right place at the right time, looking the right direction, you'll miss them.

What the Great Smoky Mountains National Park has is Photinus carolinus.

That is completely different from what is here at Congaree, is Futuris frontalis.

Different genus, different everything.

She says that even the way that they flash is different.

Carolinas do this explosion of flashes for three seconds, and then the whole forest goes dark for six seconds.

The Congaree synchrony is constant, like that.

They have just a few minutes each night to find a mate.

And sometimes it's as many as 100 males to one female.

You know, we think it's beautiful and we love looking at it, but for them it's life and death.

If they don't get those eggs in the ground for the next generation, they're done.