What twinkles in the night but originates from earth?
Which lights zips and zaps through the bushes and fences during the night?
Last week, we had to take a temporary shelter at a place just on the outskirts of Bengaluru and suddenly there was a power outage. It was around 7.30 p.m. and I opened the windows to let some fresh air. And lo, to my surprise, I saw some lights moving. At first, I thought they were some disco lights from the neighboring house. When I realized there was no power, I recollected some episodes from Masha and her Spooky stories and screamed, “Appa, some weird lights outside the window!”
Hearing my cries, my dad came out and started laughing. Looking at my unamused face, he put his caring and warm hands around my shoulders and began to explain to me that they were nothing but fire flies and that they emit light as the fly. We went into the garden and guess what, we caught one too. It was wonderful to hold them in my palms and see how bright they glowed. After a couple of photos, I let it go as I did not want to disturb its plans 😊.
Back in my room, out of curiosity, I began to search the internet for further details and I was amazed to know the following about them:
- A firefly actually doesn’t belong to the fly species; they belong to the family of beetles with around 2000+ varieties between them.
- Few firefly species are carnivorous feeding on fireflies of other species.
- The flying fireflies generally are males looking for a mate.
- Researchers have found that each species have their own light pattern which they use for communicating with each other.
- Fireflies can emit lights of various colors like golden yellow, fluorescent green, deep blue, fiery red, and all combinations between them.
- The light is emitted from the rear end of the body; just below the abdomen.
- Unlike most light that also generate heat, a firefly’s light is cold and thus doesn’t harm it when it glows – another God’s creation to wonder and ponder about.
Wait, before you chase one, please be informed that few firefly species are venomous and thus could be harmful. I wasn’t aware of this when I caught me. Lucky me, I am writing this blog!