Highlands Biological Station · Highlands, North Carolina
What makes Highlands so special?
A town laid out with a ruler, a plateau that gathers rain like a coastal forest, and one of the richest communities of life in the temperate world. Wander in — every section of this page has something to try.
- feet above sea level
- 4,118
- inches of rain in an average year
- ~87
- species known from the region
- ≈10,000
- the year the Station began
- 1927
Highlands sits on a high plateau near the crest of the Blue Ridge, where the mountains fall away to the Piedmont. Cool summers, heavy rain, and steep terrain packed into a few miles have made it one of the most biologically diverse places in the Appalachians, and a small town that has cared for that landscape for 150 years.
Use the chapter bar to jump around. Drag the slider to climb a mountain, fill the rain gauges, sort the region's species, flip the field cards, and test yourself at the end.
Why so much life?
Three forces that built a biodiversity hotspot
Geography, climate, and deep time conspired here, turning the southern Blue Ridge into a refuge, a mosaic of microclimates, and a rainforest in the mountains.
A safe harbor when the ice came south
Pleistocene · ~11,000 years agoDuring the Pleistocene, glaciers blanketed much of North America. As the ice advanced, northern species migrated south and found refuge in the Southern Appalachians. When the glaciers finally retreated, many simply stayed — seeding the rich mix of life we see today.
Meet the northern relics →
Elevation that mimics a journey north
Elevation gradient · river gorges · sky-island peaksA wide span of elevation mimics the effect of travelling north or south, layering species atop one another. Deep river gorges hold cool, stable microclimates, while isolated peaks act as “habitat islands” that nudge populations toward genetic diversity.
Climb the mountain →
A temperate rainforest in the mountains
40–61°F average · 87–100+ in. rain / yrMild temperatures — 40° to 61°F on average — and abundant rainfall of 87 to well over 100 inches a year create ideal conditions for an extraordinary range of life. The Highlands Plateau is wet enough to qualify as a temperate rainforest.
Fill the rain gauges →01 1875
A town drawn with a ruler
As the story goes, two Kansas developers, Samuel Truman Kelsey and Clinton Carter Hutchinson, took a map and drew two lines: one from Chicago to Savannah, one from New York to New Orleans. Where the lines crossed, they reasoned, a great crossroads would grow.
They founded Highlands in 1875 and named it for its height. The trade routes never came. What came instead were summer visitors escaping the lowland heat, and, half a century later, scientists who realized the plateau held something rarer than commerce.
Try it: draw the lines yourself. On a flat map they cross in the South Carolina foothills, about 25 miles southeast of town. Close enough for a ruler in 1875.
Four of the busiest cities of 1875 are marked. Press the button to connect them.
02 A town that reads, protects, and makes
Small town, long memory
Within a few years of its founding, Highlands had a library and a society devoted to its natural beauty. Both still exist, and the Station grew up beside them. Step through the years.
Summer theater
The Highlands Playhouse has staged summer productions for generations of residents and visitors.
Visual arts
The Bascom, a center for the visual arts, runs galleries, studios, and workshops a short walk from the Station.
Chamber music
The Highlands-Cashiers Chamber Music Festival brings visiting musicians to the plateau each summer.
The Station sits inside the town limits, so shops, restaurants, and the library are an easy walk from campus. The Highlands community has supported the Station's work since the beginning.
03 Elevation
Climbing is like driving north
The southern Blue Ridge spans roughly 6,000 feet of elevation, from Piedmont valleys to spruce-fir summits. Every thousand feet you climb, the air cools and the forest changes, as if you had travelled hundreds of miles toward Canada. Highlands sits at 4,118 feet, right in the middle of that journey.
4,118feet
Highlands Plateau
- Typical July high
- ~79°F
- Feels like travelling north
- ~540 mi
Temperatures and "miles north" are rules of thumb, not measurements: air cools roughly 3.5°F per 1,000 feet, and naturalists have long equated about 400 feet of climb with one degree of latitude (about 70 miles). Both are counted here from a 90°F day at 1,000 feet.
87"
Highlands, average year
106"
Highlands in 2013
39"
Seattle, average year
~30"
U.S. average
04 Climate
Where the rain gathers
Moist air from the Gulf and the Atlantic rises up the Blue Ridge escarpment, cools, and lets go. The result is around 87 inches of rain in a typical year, more than twice as much as Seattle, and in wet years well over 100.
That makes the Highlands Plateau wet enough to count as a temperate rainforest. Summers stay mild, rarely much above 80°F, and the damp, shaded coves are exactly what mosses, fungi, and lungless salamanders need.
05 Biodiversity
Count the plateau
Nearly 10,000 species are known from the southern Appalachians, and more are described every year, some new to science. Salamanders and fungi reach their greatest diversity on Earth here. Pick a group to see how it adds up.
06 Biodiversity in the Southern Appalachians
From hidden kingdoms to towering forests
Some of the region’s richest diversity hides in plain sight — in the soil, the leaf litter, and the forest canopy.
A vast and largely hidden kingdom
Fungi flourish in the wet, shaded habitats of the Southern Appalachians, and we have only begun to catalog them. They range from brightly colored mushrooms to molds and microscopic sac fungi.
- ≈2,300described species
- 20,000may exist
Powerful decomposers, fungi break down organic matter and keep entire forest ecosystems healthy.
Diverse forests, from streambanks to summits
Plant communities shift dramatically with elevation, moisture, and slope. Cove hardwood forests can pack nearly 60 species of trees and shrubs into a single stand, while spruce-fir forests cap the highest peaks above 5,000 feet, with northern hardwood, pine–oak, and hemlock forests filling the slopes below.
- 100+native trees
- 1,400flowering plants
- 500mosses & ferns
This vertical layering builds habitat upon habitat, each with its own community of life.
Tiny creatures, outsized impact
Tucked into leaf litter and hidden under logs, invertebrates are a cornerstone of Appalachian biodiversity — and the region is a global hotspot. Arachnid surveys may eventually top 800 species, millipede diversity ranks among the highest on Earth, and many of the region’s land snails live nowhere else.
- 460+arachnid species
- 230+millipede species
- 100+land snails
Decomposers, pollinators, and prey — these unsung creatures are the quiet engineers of the forest floor.
07 The Ice Age
Northern relics, far from home
When Pleistocene glaciers spread across North America, northern plants and animals moved south ahead of the ice. When the ice retreated about 11,000 years ago, some stayed behind in these cool, high mountains. Flip a card to meet a few of them.
08 Salamander Capital of the World
More salamanders than anywhere on Earth
The Southern Appalachians harbor more salamander species than any other place on the planet, and they are not just diverse — they are astonishingly abundant. Great Smoky Mountains National Park alone is home to 30 species, with still more thriving across western North Carolina.
Several foundational studies of salamander ecology were carried out right here at Highlands Biological Station.
Lungless — and breathing through the skin
Most Southern Appalachian salamanders are lungless, taking in oxygen directly through their skin. That makes constant moisture essential: skin-breathing allows a low-profile, energy-efficient life, but only where the air stays cool and damp — exactly the conditions these mountains provide.
Highlands’ cool, humid climate gives these sensitive amphibians the stability they need to thrive.
A landscape full of microhabitats
From misty ridgelines to stream-fed hollows, salamanders exploit the landscape’s wealth of microhabitats. Fog keeps the forest cool and wet; seeps, streams, damp leaf litter, and rotting logs provide shelter, breeding sites, and food — including the very invertebrates salamanders hunt.
The Southern Appalachians are one big, damp welcome mat for salamander life.
A streamside community, neatly divided
With so many species packed together, salamanders have evolved to specialize by body size and microhabitat, easing competition and predation. A single streamside community often layers several species that rarely get in one another’s way:
It’s a delicate ecological ballet — and the forest floor is the stage.
Several species, layered by body size and microhabitat, rarely get in one another’s way.
09 The neighborhood
Gorges, falls, and wilderness within reach
Few field stations sit this close to so many kinds of landscape. River gorges, protected wilderness, long-term research forests, and the highest peaks in the East are all within an hour or so. Choose a place on the compass.
Distances are straight-line miles from the Station; driving distances on mountain roads are longer.
10 Why a field station here
A living laboratory
In 1927 a circle of Highlands citizens founded the museum association that became the Highlands Biological Station. Within a few years, scientists from Chapel Hill, Vanderbilt, and New York were basing research here.
Nearly a century later, researchers and students still come for the same reasons: an extraordinary range of habitats close at hand, and partners nearby like the USDA Forest Service's Coweeta Hydrologic Laboratory, with field sites stretching from Great Smoky Mountains National Park to Gorges State Park and the Blue Ridge Parkway. Several foundational studies of salamander ecology were carried out right here.
- acre campus inside the town limits
- 24
- a center of Western Carolina University
- Since 2018
- founded as a museum association
- 1927
- first research laboratory
- 1931
11 Test yourself
How well do you know the plateau?
Keep exploring
Go deeper into Highlands
Sources for the figures on this page
- Highlands Biological Station, Biodiversity of Highlands: species counts, climate ranges, northern relics, Ice Age refuge.
- Highlands Biological Station, Our History: 1927–2018 milestones, founding figures, campus.
- Highlands-Cashiers Land Trust, Our History: Highlands Improvement Association (1883), Satulah Mountain purchase (1909), oldest land trust in North Carolina.
- Fontana Regional Library, Hudson Library, and R. Shaffner, "The Hudson Library of Highlands, N.C." (2019): incorporated 1884, one of the oldest public libraries in the state.
- Highlands founding (1875) and the Chicago–Savannah / New York–New Orleans story: Highlands Chamber of Commerce.
- Rainfall: long-term average of about 87.6 inches and 106 inches in 2013, Highlands, North Carolina (NOAA climate data).