Lightning Bug
Lightning Bugs are in the beetle family. They are commonly called fireflies and are actually attempting to call a mate when they blink.
The technical name for their blinking is bioluminescence.
I think I’d rather call it blinking, it’s easier to pronounce.
Fireflies make what is called cold light. That means it has no ultraviolet rays and is pale or reddish green. It can also light up the area so efficiently that it has a 96 percent rating.
Lightning Bug
Fireflies have a lot of cousins. There are more than 2000 kinds of them alive in the world. Most of them are found in wet areas, or in woodlands where they can offer better food sources to the larvae.
Most fireflies are brown and have very soft bodies rather than hard like most beetles. Females look very much like males.
Some kinds of fireflies come out in the daytime rather than at night. They land on trees and shrubs and can only be seen in shadowy areas.
Fireflies mate in the air or on low shrubs.
A few days afterward the female lays her eggs on the ground, or just under the ground. Four week later the larvae hatch out of the eggs and eat until the very end of summer.
The larvae are called glowworms because they do glow lightly. They take about five months to become actually flying Lightning Bugs.
Fireflies do live through the winter, sometimes for several years, so the Lightning Bug you caught this week may be the one you caught and released last year.
About Author
I caught over 200 lightning bugs last night and before I caught them I bought 50 huge tanks for them
The big lightning bug picture at the top of the page reminds me of all the girl characters from from friends
Lightning Bugs live through the winter, as this website says above, but why can we not see them like they are seen so prevantly during the summer months?
because they like wet areas but not extremely wet areas so they stay in dirt and in summer it is moist so they mostly come out in summer
Because they are only out in the summer to mate which is what they use their lights for.
I would like to know the makeup up a lightning bug. What causes them to light up?
Last night (August 3rd) really late at night, I saw a lightning bug, but it was the only one out and it seemed larger than the ones I usually see, and it was flying high in the trees. I was wondering if it is a different kind than the more common ones.