We used to have so many of them when I was a kid. Their numbers are dwindling. 😭
Lightning bugs!!
Submitted 2 months ago by fossilesque@mander.xyz to science_memes@mander.xyz
https://mander.xyz/pictrs/image/b580adc7-e128-4605-864c-15d437613451.jpeg
Comments
galaxia@lemmy.zip 2 months ago
OZFive@lemmy.world 2 months ago
MelodiousFunk@slrpnk.net 2 months ago
I saw that the other day too. It’s just that 35 years ago, everyone still raked their lawns. Same as 35 years before that.
RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 2 months ago
The less I maintain my yard the more lightning bugs we get.
We do not maintain our back yard very well. I refuse to let these amazing insects disappear. We also seed for pollinators as well.
ameancow@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I never lived anywhere near them, never seen a bioluminescent creature in my life despite my wish to do so.
But when I was about 6 years old, I have a weird memory of my parents driving out to the deep desert with me and we parked off some dirt road and my dad got out of the truck for maybe a half hour. My mom seemed nervous. I saw a green light at the base of a bush about 15 feet away from the vehicle, just a tiny little bright green light, solid color, middle of nowhere.
I asked my mom what it was and she said “it’s a glowworm” and I asked if we could go look at it and she snapped “NO don’t go outside!” and I was absolutely boggled what was going on. My dad came back, they drove out of there without a word. One of those life mysteries we all have tucked away in our memory banks. I’m pretty sure I wasn’t dreaming, but it’s getting back there in years, probably was early 80’s now.
starman2112@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
It brings me unimaginable sadness to know that my recently born nephew will grow up in such a region, when just a few years ago you could see hundreds of these guys in any given back yard
AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world 2 months ago
EddoWagt@feddit.nl 2 months ago
I hate blankets of grass so much
fff45667@lemm.ee 2 months ago
Leave your leaves in autumn!
IMALlama@lemmy.world 2 months ago
We’ve been living at the same house for about a decade. We have a tiny tiny creek in our back yard with some unmowed area around it. Our yard is chemical free and we have tons of pollinators. We saw single digit numbers of lightning bugs for nearly the time we lived here. Never more than two a night and most nights none showed up.
The past few years we’ve seen an uptick. Not loads, but they seem to be making a small comeback. At least in our yard.
imvii@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
I lived most of my life in areas where fireflies were around, but they weren’t the bioluminescent type,
The house I moved to about 5 years ago is in the woods and 3 months out of the year these guys buzz around my front yard and I’ve even helped a few out of the house.
They never fail to bring a smile to my face.
Bytemeister@lemmy.world 2 months ago
First one of the year is always a treat. The. I remember how many there were as a kid and it makes me sad.
Please, switch to red outdoor lights if possible, and if you can’t do that, shade your outdoor lights so that it only illuminates specific areas. Fireflies are affected by light pollution.
Also, don’t rake your leaves, or if you do have to take, try to sequester them in an area on your property, (I’m currently using my leaves as “sunkill” for garden and flower beds.) fireflies lay eggs on leaf litter, if you dispose of the leaves, you dispose of the eggs.
jol@discuss.tchncs.de 2 months ago
Also, people are born every day, and some just go on with their lives never learning about random facts like these. Every day, someone is one of the lucky 10k.
dmention7@lemm.ee 2 months ago
Man, imagine seeing a field of fireflies IRL for the first time, if you had never heard of them before! That would be pretty mindblowing.
jol@discuss.tchncs.de 2 months ago
I knew about them but didn’t see them well into adulthood. It’s underwhelming
lord_ryvan@ttrpg.network 2 months ago
ChrysanthemumIndica@discuss.tchncs.de 2 months ago
I grew up calling them lightning bugs, and I’m so excited to see a thread full of people calling them the same!
VeganCheesecake@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 months ago
In German, they’re Glühwürmchen (“glow worms”).
lord_ryvan@ttrpg.network 2 months ago
Wait hold up, in Dutch we have glimwormen (“shimmer worms” ) but those don’t fly! They’re actual bioluminecent worms.
Aren’t German Glühwürmchen the same thing?
ChrysanthemumIndica@discuss.tchncs.de 2 months ago
Interesting, interesting. We call the female lightning bugs here glow worms because they are wingless, but today I’m learning that is not the case for all species!
Also Glühwürmchen is a cute word.
coffee_tacos@mander.xyz 2 months ago
You would not believe your eyes
Hagdos@lemmy.world 2 months ago
When ten thousand fireflies
EddoWagt@feddit.nl 2 months ago
You already messed up on the second sentence man, its ten million, not ten thousand
pupbiru@aussie.zone 2 months ago
coming from australia, this is super real… we have such a unique set of animals and plants that it’s all just so normal to us, but then you travel overseas and everything is like what you see on tv and in movies
i’m mid 30s, and last year i saw snow falling for the first time in chicago… snow falling is beautiful, and to most of the world it’s just normal - to australians, it just never happens
straightjorkin@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Seeing how Australians react to kangaroos like they’re just slightly more dangerous deer is so jarring
roaringkitty@lemmy.ml 2 months ago
To be fair, they mostly are just slightly more dangerous deer
shalafi@lemmy.world 2 months ago
lennivelkant@discuss.tchncs.de 2 months ago
I hope you get many beautiful snowfalls in your life yet
CptEnder@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Snowfall is probably one of the best sensations in nature. It’s just so calming and peaceful.
LaLuzDelSol@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I know a girl in south carolina who wasn’t from there; she saw lightning bugs for the first time there one summer and she started crying. I find that story very touching- its a reminder not to be blind to the beauty of the world, even if that beauty is so common that it’s unremarkable.
shalafi@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I see beautiful and common things that people around just shoulder shrug about.
Saw a black bear mama with two cubs last month, a coyote dancing playfully the next week. This week the water lilies are starting to explode across the local swamp. In that same swamp are hundreds, if not 1,000+, endangered pitcher plants and common sundews. Even at work there are several species of songbird in the garden section and raptors patrol the skies.
scops@reddthat.com 2 months ago
My mom grew up in an area of California with no fireflies. When she was a teenager, she went on a cross-country trip with a friend. In the mountains of North Carolina, they were driving along at night when some bugs hit the windshield of their car. They didn’t think much of it… until the bug guts started glowing. Then they screamed.
Tudsamfa@lemmy.world 2 months ago
No fireflies where I live, but that doesn’t mean my childhood was free of a beautiful insect swarm.
My area had a bad outbreak of cockchafers I got to enjoy.
makyo@lemmy.world 2 months ago
And an equally beautiful name for that fine insect
jaybone@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I have never heard of that insect.
Tudsamfa@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Despite the name and status as a pest (they are literally European scarabs), I feel nostalgic whenever I see one. Farmers ruthlessly fought them, so there hasn’t been a swarming event in at least 20 years.
GhostlyPixel@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I saw them for the first time last summer, I probably looked crazy to people, but I was a guy in his late 20s taking pictures and videos of bugs to send to my family
I thought I was seeing spots on the edge of my vision or something before I realized what they were
Album@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
Different areas have different lightning bugs too. The ones in southern ontario are not the same as the ones in the midwest US.
spamfajitas@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 months ago
They have distinct blinking patterns as well. IIRC observing the pattern is one of the ways used to classify them.
Album@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
and colours!
ryedaft@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
Except when it’s a firefly pretending to be a different species of firefly.
toynbee@lemmy.world 2 months ago
thespcicifcocean@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Growing up, they were indigenous where I lived. After I moved away, it was so surreal no not see random lights in the back yard during the summer nights.
ruplicant@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
these guys are great!
I was also blown away the first time I’ve seen bioluminescent bacteria on some strip algae…you would pass your finger by them and see the hidden binary encoded alien messages
Remember_the_tooth@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Firefly: a lightning bug
Lightning bug: a firefly
Fire bug: an arsonist
Lightning fly: ??? The electric eel of the dragonfly world?
“Is that bat glowing?”
That’s no bat. Run!"
[Electrical crackling sounds]
58008@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Tried searching YouTube for “fireflies” to watch them in action. 99.9% of the results are music, podcasts and political channels using the term. Think I saw 2 videos of actual fireflies on the first page of results 😆
ryedaft@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
If you have Disney+ then there’s a show called A Real Bugs Life and one of the episodes is mostly about fireflies (and atlas moths and staghorn beetles).
dumples@midwest.social 2 months ago
I saw a few lightning bugs in my yard last year. My life goal have them consistently in my yard. Good thing this dovetails nicely with my other life goals of getting butterflies, bumblebees and birds in my yards
jjagaimo@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
Make sure not to bag and toss all the leaves in the fall - leave a bunch in a pile in the corner of your yard. Thats where they like to stay at night
dumples@midwest.social 2 months ago
We got piles on my gardens which will get covered for composting in place for the rest of the year. Also our wildflower garden is pretty much untouched except a yearly mow to remove baby trees. So plenty of spots for bugs
Zozano@aussie.zone 2 months ago
Tumbler has one of the worst comment layouts…
Jakeroxs@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
One of the cool things about living in Ohio for a couple years, didn’t exist in Texas where I was raised.
mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
Also significantly fewer roaches. In my experience they’re more common in the south due to the warmer weather
Jakeroxs@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
Mayflys tho, that was something I hadn’t even conceived of lol
elav@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Cocuyo is the name in Cuba 🥹
Siegfried@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Ghibli even made a movie about them
hedge_lord@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I have never seen one and I am very jealous :(
davidgro@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Yeah. I once even visited the US South, but it was the wrong time of year or area.
quediuspayu@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 months ago
Are actually that bright? Where I live they era very dim and green.
Bishma@discuss.tchncs.de 2 months ago
It’s been more than 20 years since my wife moved to the west cost and she still laments the lack of fireflies. Where-as, whenever I’ve been out east, I’m caught off guard by them… then I start singing Roxanne.
You don’t have to put on the gold light
LovableSidekick@lemmy.world 2 months ago
We don’t have them here in Darkonia.
the_dopamine_fiend@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Bioluminescence is actual magic. I will take no calls on this matter.
sp3tr4l@lemmy.zip 2 months ago
Eh, its kinda the base level of the evolutionary tech tree.
gizmodo.com/glowing-deep-sea-squid-have-a-complex…
youtube.com/watch?v=DE89YY7zCio
Humboldt squid skin is bioluminiscent, but roughly akin to a flexible lcd or oled screen, with many different ‘pixels’ capable of being set specifically.
They likely have the ability to communicate by basically displaying different patterns of different colors and brightnesses and translucency, sorta like a human walking around with a sandwich board made of lcd screens, which they can control with a phone app.
They may very well have an entire language they can convey via sequenced or at least specific patterns.
Remember_the_tooth@lemmy.world 2 months ago
“I cast 200 μg Luciferin.”
[Dice noises]
“Nat 15. Your abdomen glows and dims slowly and rhythmically.”
mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
Pathfinder 2e literally has bioluminescence bombs that’s just jarred firefly juice that’s secreted by humanoid fey that resemble the bugs
dharmacurious@slrpnk.net 2 months ago
Nah, it legit is, though. Just because someone or most someones understand how something happens doesn’t mean it isn’t magic anymore. It just means that we have a hard magic system. We understand our magic so well that we’ve stopped seeing it as magical, but if you take a step back and take a look at the big picture it becomes clear that the world is magical, and everything around us is this amazing, often confusing, incredible tapestry of Wonder and awe. The world has just ground us down so much that we feel like wonder is strictly for children, that we’re not allowed to feel wonder anymore. Embrace the magic. Even if you know how it works.
notabot@lemm.ee 2 months ago
Sometimes I stop to think about the fact that a tiny electrical impulse in my brain can cause my fingers to move and press buttons on my keyboard, which in turn causes larger, but still small electrical impulses to trigger a shiny rock we trapped lightning in to do an immense number of calculations, to send a stream of further impulses to my network router, which sends them on to another router, and another, and on and on, each step might go via a wire, or radio, or the flashing of a tiny light, or even bounce off of a satellite in space and back to another router, until it eventually finds it’s way to a server, which does huge numbers of further calculations, then sends impulses back to me, and also to other servers, via just as remarkable a route, which in turn send impulses down wires and optical fibres and bouncing off of satellites until one of those streams of impulses gets to your router, where it gets sent on to your shiny lightning rock, which performs many calculations and causes a pattern of light and dark dots to appear in front of you, which cause a series of tiny electrical impulses in your brain, that you perceive have meaning.
The natural world is filled with magic and wonder, but this is a magic we designed and built ourselves.
miss_demeanour@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 months ago
Spelling it without help is also magic, so I hear ya.
callyral@pawb.social 2 months ago
Magic exists but we call it science
samus12345@lemm.ee 2 months ago
Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from science.
samus12345@lemm.ee 2 months ago
Humans are bioluminescent, too! But it’s too dim for anything to actually be able to see, so it’s no fun.
Sculptor9157@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
We also have stripes.
captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
Is that “article” trying to say we’re exothermic and thus glow in the infrared?
Glitch@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 months ago
Hell ya. Real magic is the feelings we felt along the way. Swimming in bioluminescent waters is one of my favorite life experiences
ieatpwns@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Fuckin bio-lights how do they work
Dasus@lemmy.world 2 months ago
The definition of magic I go by is “affecting consciousness in accordance with will”, and when you’re going to watch fireflies with the thought in mind to appreciate them aesthetically, then yes, they are actual magic.
norse-mythology.org/concepts/magic/