#Bugs that look like lightning bugs code#
#Bugs that look like lightning bugs plus#
#Bugs that look like lightning bugs series#

The light produced has virtually no heat. Then they are attacked and eaten! However, most firefly adults eat only pollen, nectar, or nothing at all, living at most about three weeks.Ī firefly flashes when a chemical called luciferin (named after the Biblical Lucifer, the Angel of Light who became Satan) in their light organs combines with oxygen in the presence of an enzyme called luciferase. One unusual and antisocial kind of female firefly in the United States mimics the flashes of females of a different genus, luring them in until they land close by. After a summer of eating, they overwinter in small tunnels, emerge as the weather warms in the spring, become pupae, and finally change into adult fireflies the next season. Their diet consists mostly of small snails and worms. Photo by Gerald Lenhard, University of GeorgiaĪfter mating, the female lays tiny glowing eggs just under the surface of the soil that hatch in two to four weeks, into tiny predaceous larvae, called glowworms. Others synchronize from tree to tree, first one tree, then the next, and so on, causing waves of light to sweep across the forest. In some tropical areas some fireflies flash in unison, hundreds at a time, with one “pacemaker” beetle setting the tempo, making it look like a whole tree filled with hundreds of them is wired with tiny Christmas lights going on and off together.

#Bugs that look like lightning bugs code#

The two chat a bit by trading flashes to assure they’re both the same species, and if the code and their attitudes match, they mate. Still others send out three flashes in a row. A few kinds flash twice, pause, and then flash twice more. Some fireflies send single, short flashes, others produce longer ones.

#Bugs that look like lightning bugs series#

A female will only respond to a male “flasher” (Uh, you know what I mean! Sorry about that!) if his navigation lights send the correct series of impulses. Females stay on the ground or on vegetation, watching and waiting. Some investigators have theorized that fireflies may also flash to warn off predators, but it doesn’t work with frogs that happily eat them in large quantities, probably pleased they advertise their position so clearly with their little strobe lights. They flash special messages to attract mates kind of an insect Morse Code. In East Texas, fireflies are usually half to three-quarters of an inch long, and the pattern of their rhythmic flashing varies with their sex and species.

#Bugs that look like lightning bugs plus#

(To remember that, think of “lamp” plus “pyro” and you get “lamp fire beetle.”) Fireflies are beetles in the insect family Lampyridae. Over 1100 species of fireflies live in tropic and temperate areas of the world, with about 125 kinds found in the United States. The rest of you will just have to run out on the next lightning-buggy evening and catch some to sniff. Anybody who has handled them knows just what I mean. Their smell is exactly like, well – lightning bugs. Lightning bugs have a characteristic musty, buggy odor that in my mind’s nose I can smell even as I write this. Or, being boys and brutal, we pinched off their luminous tail segments and stuck them on our faces where they glowed for quite a time like little greenish-yellow demonic eyes. We scooped them out of the air with our hands and put them in a jar where we could watch them twinkle. Technically named fireflies, we called them lightning bugs when I was growing up and most folks around here still do. Pastures and low areas, particularly along streams, often sparkle each evening with their flickering lights. But, it’s the right time of year, especially when the humidity is high, to see their tranquil flash – flash – flash scintillate through the fields and trees. Perhaps because of the extremely dry conditions this summer I haven’t seen many of the little flashing beetles called fireflies. A fluorescent light bulb is only about 3% efficient wasting 97% of its energy in heat.

They produce cold light at about 96% efficiency.

Photo courtesy of The last segments of this lightning bug are its flashers.