The Southern Appalachians are the oldest mountains in North America, existing for at least 500 million years. Small, wingless and often blind primitive insects were some of the first animals to live on land, possibly including the Appalachian Mountains. Today the Great Smoky Mountains National Park is the home of many of these primitive insects. We know very little about these inhabitants of the park. Preliminary data from collections during the past five years indicates there are many species unknown to science. During the summer of 2005 Dr. Robert T. Allen will spend approximately two months intensively surveying the GSMNP, collecting, identifying, and studying three of these ancient insect orders (the diplurans, jumping springtails, and silverfish). Dr. Allen's project is part of a larger program sponsored by Discover Life In America and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
Collectors List: CollectorList.pdf
Family Count Graph: FamilyCountAcGraph.pdf
Project Information: ProjectInfo.pdf
Samplings List: SamplingsList.pdf
Species Ranking: SpeciesDistributionRanking.pdf
Species Report: Taxonomy.pdf
Upper Taxa List: UpperTaxa.pdf
Principal Investigator
PI Name: Dr. Robert T. Allen
PI Organization: The Acacemy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia
Primary Taxonomist
Taxonomist Name: Dr. Robert T. Allen
Taxonomist Organization: The Acacemy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia
