BLACK MOUNTAIN

Fire tower at summit of Black Mountain

BLACK MOUNTAIN

CHATTAHOOCHEE NATIONAL FOREST

Black Mountain; Chattahoochee National Forest:  GEORGIA: Union Co. & Lumpkin Co.

Person to contact regarding insect collecting permits: Cindy Wentworth; Ecologist/Botanist; Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forests; USDA-FS; P.O. Box 9; Blairsville, GA  30514; (706) 745-6928 [current as of May 2000]

Elevation: 3741 feet .  Location of summit: 34°43'16"N; 84°00'46"W

Collection date & weather conditions: This site was visited on May 25, 2000.  Collections were undertaken in the late afternoon.  The weather was mostly sunny and quite hot.

Description of summit:  A fire tower is located at the summit of Black Mountain.  It is surrounded by some large rock outcroppings and some scrubby field.  There is also quite a bit of trash (broken bottles, odds & ends construction materials, etc.) around the fire tower.  To access summit, park at Woody Gap parking area along SR-60.  Follow the road back northwest for a short distance to a gated forest service road which leads to the summit.  The first part of the road slopes fairly gently and goes through a nice woods.  It leads out of the woods into a more field-like area, much more open.  The hike to the top along the gravel road was the most strenuous hike of all the hikes to mountaintops that we took, because of the slope and being much more exposed to the hot sun.  Very few flies were found anywhere on the summit, but it was fairly late in the afternoon when we arrived at the summit.

Specimens collected: Here is a listing of the species that I collected and that Dodge notes as being collected at Black Mountain.  Unfortunately, he does not list the species by site in his paper on "Sarcophagidae and other Diptera taken by trap and net on Georgia mountain summits in 1952", but he does note locality information in his paper on "A new sarcophagid genus with descriptions of fifteen new species (Diptera)". 

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