Glowworms
That’s right east coast and midwest, we got ‘em too
Lampyridea is a group of insects that glow! you are all probably aware of the firefly, the common member of this group. This post is not about them! why? because they don’t live in southern California. As a Park Ranger in the Channel Coast district, I have been on the verge of obsessed with bio-luminescence since I first started my career. The idea of an animal or plant that can create its own lights is amazing to me. This topic has been my favored campfire program topic for most of my career.
95% of all the luminescent organisms exist in the ocean. Name any type of critter and there are probably numerous examples that glow. On land, however, the numbers plummet. There is that old standby the firefly. There are a couple of mushrooms. what else? nothing right. No glowing insects in California right? WRONG! There are actually several species of insect in the Channel Coast district that produce light. The most common is the Pink Glowworm. These little buggers are relatives of the firefly.
Here is where it gets interesting. The adults do not have light emitting organs. Actually let me clarify, the adult male does not have a light organ. Lets get more interesting. the Females never metamorphose to adults. They spend their entire life in the larval form. They have the light organs and they use those lights to call in the men. The male fly is pretty much optimized to find his lady. The biggest organ on the male is his huge bulbous eyes!
This guy transforms from a larva to a winged adult and then spends the entirety of the remainder of his life flying around looking for the greenish glow of the female.
She is usually found scrabbling around in the leaf litter or in the bark of a downed tree. These larval females that are sexually mature are sometimes incorrectly called Glow Worms. In his 1919 treatise entitled “The Glow-Worm and other Beetles”, J. Henri Fabre voices his displeasure of the term as follows:
“In fact, we might easily cavil at the word “worm.” the Lampyris is not a worm at all, not even in general appearance. He has six short legs, which he well knows how to use, he is a gad-about, a trot about. The female is an ill-favored thing who knows naught of the delights of flying: all her life long, she retains the larval shape, which for the rest, is similar to that of the male, who himself is imperfect so long as he has not achieved the maturity that comes with pair-timing”.
WOW! I couldn't have said it better myself. If you would like more of that poetic not-a-worm talk, then delve deeper. My favorite part of the book was the section where Monsieur Fabre describes in similar prose the near surgical way in which some species of glow worms first drug their victims with a paralytic venom and then methodically dissect them alive! Having written his thoughts in 1919 he imagines a future where human surgeons might one day have at their disposal an anesthetic of similar efficacy for their profession all the while lamenting the shortcomings of Ether and Chloroform.
The favorite food of the Glow-worms are centipedes and millipedes! When you look at the image below, realize that this millipede is alive. It has been paralyzed by the venomous bite of a glowworm and is having to endure the methodical consumption. Who knows how lucid a millipede is but ones imagination can really get out of hand if you personalize the experience.
So…… “how do I find one?” you ask. First thing you need to do is look for them in June and July because that seems to be when they are most aglow. The second thing you need to do is find an oak woodland (preferably one with lots of leaf litter and downed tree limbs) and thirdly you need to find a place that is dark. I found one on a very dark night when the battery to my flashlight had, I thought at the time inconveniently, died on me. The silver lining of the dead battery was that my night vision had a chance to kick in. I was able to see the faint faint green light of a female Microphotus in the leaf litter under an oak tree. While not as exciting as an east coast stereotypical mid summers night with blinking lightening bugs in the thousands, the one solo light deep in the leaves seemingly for my sole enjoyment, was more… meaningful.
