Fireflies

The Mystery of Fireflies

Attract fireflies to your yard by encouraging your parents to cut down on the use of pesticides. Turn off all the outside lights you don't need. The artificial light interferes with fireflies luminous signals. You will not see as many fireflies on nights when the moon is full. Low hanging trees and tall grass is also attractive to fireflies.

Actually a beetle, the firefly and when fully grown is almost as long as the width of your thumb. Its wing covers are blackish-brown, with dull yellow borders. The female firefly does not fly. Fireflies use their lights to attract a mate. The larva of the firefly glows just like the adult. The glow they make has no heat. Oxygen mixes with body fluids in the firefly's tail and makes light. Most of the firefly's enemies are not afraid of its lights. Often you can see a strange glow coming from a frogs belly. Adult fireflies eat nothing, but the larva may eat insect larvae, slugs and snails.

It is fun on a warm summer night to collect fireflies for close observation. Please respect them as living things and be gentle with them. Set them free after you have watched them light. They are fascinating and have often been called the "world's smallest dynamo". For a closer look, click here.