GATLINBURG, TN — Discover Life in America (DLiA) invites the public to their annual Great Smoky Mountains Salamander Ball on Wheels on Saturday, October 23, 2021, from 6:00 – 9:30 PM at Parkway Drive In Theater in Maryville, TN. This is a family friendly, COVID adapted, fundraising event for DLiA, celebrating the diversity of life in Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

This year’s Ball has been adapted to keep attendees safe in their cars but will provide great local entertainment. The lineup includes local musician Bill Mize perform acoustic guitar sets, along with a reading of the Great Smoky Mountains Salamander Ball book by author Lisa Hortsman and films The Last Dragons and Riverwebs. These gorgeous films, created by the non-profit Freshwaters Illustrated, showcases our very own Hellbender salamanders and an in-depth look at river systems. These great films fit exceedingly well with our mission of biodiversity conservation.

Additionally, there will be a Halloween Car-stume Contest. The best dressed cars will receive some great prizes. Categories include spookiest, funniest, and most unique.

Salamander Ball tickets can be purchased for $50 per car. Sponsorships for the event are also available! For more information and to purchase tickets, visit dlia.org/event/salamander-ball-2021. All proceeds from this event fund DLiA’s mission in the Smokies.

Since its establishment in 1998, DLiA has been committed to discovering, understanding, and conserving biological diversity around the globe. Their flagship project, the All-Taxa Biodiversity Inventory (ATBI), aims to catalog every kind of plant, animal, and other organism inhabiting Great Smoky Mountains National Park. To date, the ATBI has discovered over 10,000 species in the park, including 1,044 new species to science, but there is much more to discover!

“The Smokies faces a number of outside threats from air pollution to over development,” said Todd Witcher, Executive Director of DLiA. “The ATBI is more than just identifying and counting species of life. It is about understanding habitats, ecosystems, and relationships between species. We know so little about the web of life, and so many species are disappearing forever. The more we understand about the natural world, the better equipped we are to preserve and maintain it.”

DLiA’s mission is to discover, understand, and conserve biological diversity. DLiA’s flagship project, the ATBI (All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory), is a joint effort with the National Park System to identify and understand every species within Great Smoky Mountains National Park. To date, DLiA has helped add over 10,000 species to the inventory of life in the park, 1,044 which are new to science.