Speaker 1: Oh hey, it's that key under the mat that somehow
Speaker 1: nobody finds and uses to steal all of your stuff.
Speaker 1: Alli Ward in this episode. It first aired in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty one, but it's summer and there has been a
Speaker 1: lot of discourse on fireflies lately, and this week July
Speaker 1: fifth and sixth marks World Firefly Day. So I reached
Speaker 1: out to this guest because I wanted to reair this
Speaker 1: with some updates, and she said, I feel like we've
Speaker 1: accomplished a ton of firefly conservation in the past four years,
Speaker 1: and so we've cited some of the new studies and
Speaker 1: research and ways to volunteer.
Speaker 2: With this creature. Because let's roll the episode.
Speaker 1: We have fireflies for you? Or do we have lightning bugs?
Speaker 1: We're going to get into it. So these glowing friends,
Speaker 1: they're neither flies nor true bugs, rather beatles in the
Speaker 1: family lamparade. But as you will soon learn, this episode's
Speaker 1: name comes at an expert's behest. So she is a
Speaker 1: professor of biology at Tufts University in Boston. She did
Speaker 1: a TED talk on these beloved little critters. She's the
Speaker 1: author of the information pact and entertaining book Silent Sparks
Speaker 1: the Wondrous world of Fireflies. You may know her on
Speaker 1: Twitter under the handle Silent Sparks, and I was introduced
Speaker 1: to her through Eric Eaton, who was our Wasp champion
Speaker 1: a few episodes back, and I jumped at the chance
Speaker 1: to talk to her. Cram did in the schedule a
Speaker 1: day or two before my wedding earlier this month, and
Speaker 1: we will get to know.
Speaker 2: Her work and just a sec but super quick.
Speaker 1: Thank you to everyone at Patreon dot com slash Ologies
Speaker 1: for making this show possible for the four years we've
Speaker 1: been around, and for submitting great questions every week. Thank
Speaker 1: you to everyone keeping Ologies up in the charts by
Speaker 1: leaving us reviews. And each week I read a just
Speaker 1: left one and it's twenty twenty five now, So thank
Speaker 1: you to svgd Makes, who wrote I Love Ologies. It's
Speaker 1: one of the few podcasts I share with people time
Speaker 1: and time again. The only downside you get smarter and
Speaker 1: start to question every source of fictional entertainment, sbgd makes.
Speaker 1: We're here to load up your brains. We're here to
Speaker 1: load up some flimflam and I guess spoil the rest
Speaker 1: of entertainment. And thank you to everyone whose reviews I
Speaker 1: creepily read literally all of them. Okay, onward sparkle butt ology.
Speaker 1: You're going to learn the etymology in a minute. I'm
Speaker 1: not even go there in the intro, but you will
Speaker 1: also get hip to how these animals light up, why
Speaker 1: they light up our hearts, their luminous sexy language. The
Speaker 1: best firefly photography accounts to follow, How to take your
Speaker 1: own pictures, dos and don'ts of firefly observation. Is it
Speaker 1: actually okay to put them in jars on your nightstands?
Speaker 1: Or are you a monster? Cobalt ghosts, pink glowworms, fem
Speaker 1: fatales of the firefly world. How their populations are doing
Speaker 1: if artificial lights affect them, How to join conservation efforts,
Speaker 1: and why Western states need not suffer from sparkle but
Speaker 1: envy any longer. With firefly scientists, evolutionary ecologist, researcher, conservation advocate, professor, author,
Speaker 1: and perhaps the world's first and only self proclaimed sparkle botologist,
Speaker 1: Doctor Sarah Lewis.
Speaker 3: My name is Sarah Lewis and I use she her
Speaker 3: let us dive.
Speaker 1: Great, Doctor Lewis, thank you so much for joining your ology.
Speaker 2: Is it lamp proology? Would that be what it is
Speaker 2: you know, this.
Speaker 3: Is really really a hard decision. I spent a lot
Speaker 3: of time in the last day thinking about this, and
Speaker 3: so I don't know. I don't like lamper I don't
Speaker 3: like that one at all. What about lightning bugology or
Speaker 3: I don't know, like sparkle buttology. There's so many really
Speaker 3: great ones. You know, why use the family scientific name?
Speaker 3: It just doesn't seem right.
Speaker 4: Sparkle biology it is, okay, I like that one too good.
Speaker 3: I agreed.
Speaker 1: You are one of the world's most well known firefly
Speaker 1: experts and scientists and enthusiasts, and can you tell me
Speaker 1: a little bit about your relationship with bugs in general?
Speaker 2: Have you always been.
Speaker 3: Pro bug so? Yeah, you know, no, I haven't. In fact,
Speaker 3: I don't like every single insect. I am completely completely
Speaker 3: in love with fireflies, and I think that most people are.
Speaker 3: You know, I know a lot of people who don't
Speaker 3: really like insects. In fact, they have kind of you know, entomophobia.
Speaker 4: We don't like bugs, Honie.
Speaker 1: They don't like bugs.
Speaker 3: But I've really never met a single person who didn't
Speaker 3: like fireflies, so they're you know, they're kind of unique
Speaker 3: in that way, right, Like even insect haters love fireflies.
Speaker 3: Of course, many people don't realize that fireflies are insects, so.
Speaker 2: Huh, yeah, what do you think they think they.
Speaker 3: Are magical fairies? Yeah? Absolutely. I spend an inordinate amount
Speaker 3: of time trying to sort of educate and advocate for
Speaker 3: fireflies on social media, and so one of the things
Speaker 3: I've noticed on Twitter is that there's a lot of
Speaker 3: people who don't actually think that fireflies exist. They think
Speaker 3: they're like something that's in children's stories. It's kind of
Speaker 3: like a myth and uh huh, yeah, there really aren't
Speaker 3: any fireflies as far as they're concerned. They just don't
Speaker 3: believe it.
Speaker 1: I mean I felt that way about huckleberries, and then
Speaker 1: I found out they were a real food. It was
Speaker 1: like a huckleberry exists. So fireflies, I guess that's the
Speaker 1: first flim flam to debunk, is that fireflies are non
Speaker 1: existent but they're not fixed and they're real.
Speaker 3: Yeah. There's so many really cool myths tod bunk about fireflies.
Speaker 3: I just it, you know, it's like so much fun.
Speaker 1: Right, what are the myths do you feel like people
Speaker 1: come at you to ask about?
Speaker 3: Okay, so, first they are real, that's cool, and yeah,
Speaker 3: the other thing is that a lot of people think,
Speaker 3: you know, you've seen one firefly, you've seen them all,
Speaker 3: but there's actually a lot of different kinds of fireflies,
Speaker 3: and so yeah, there's a tremendous diversity in terms of
Speaker 3: their behavior and their lifestyles and the kinds of things
Speaker 3: that they like to do, the kinds of things they
Speaker 3: like to eat. And so that's really cool. Like there's
Speaker 3: not just one kind of firefly. If you believe that
Speaker 3: fireflies are real, you might think there's just one. That
Speaker 3: there's actually about well more than two thousand different species
Speaker 3: of firefly, and it turns out we're discovering new ones
Speaker 3: all the time.
Speaker 1: Oh that's cool. How big and how small do they get?
Speaker 3: Hmmm? So they can be pretty tiny, like you can
Speaker 3: still see them with your naked so not that tiny,
Speaker 3: and they can also get really big. A couple of
Speaker 3: years ago, I was in Malaysia and I had a
Speaker 3: chance to see these. They're kind of giant, flightless female fireflies.
Speaker 3: They're like the females are like the size of your thumb,
Speaker 3: Oh a big thumb, right, So they're usually and they
Speaker 3: don't have any wings. They actually they kind of look
Speaker 3: wormish and they are they're pale, and they're big, and
Speaker 3: they're full of eggs and they crawl around on the ground.
Speaker 3: And the genus is Lampigera. And they're actually really cool
Speaker 3: because the males look like regular little fireflies, but the
Speaker 3: females are giant, much much bigger than the males, and
Speaker 3: they are like putting all of their energy into reproduction.
Speaker 3: They don't bother flying around, like, you know, why bother.
Speaker 3: I'll just sit here let the males come to me.
Speaker 1: So some of these lady lightning bugs, endemic to Asia
Speaker 1: would fill up your whole palm had you the chance
Speaker 1: to hold one. They are wingless, dense, pregnant, with a
Speaker 1: butt that blinks like a flickering neon sign, kind of
Speaker 1: like the sexy job of the hut of fireflies, with
Speaker 1: a real flashy ass. Now much different than the airborne
Speaker 1: field fairies that folks in North America might be used to.
Speaker 1: When did you first encounter them? Because I grew up
Speaker 1: in California, so I didn't see one until I was
Speaker 1: out of college when I went to New Jersey one summer.
Speaker 1: But when did you first encounter fireflies?
Speaker 3: Yeah? You know, it's funny. A lot of people have
Speaker 3: these like origin stories of like first seen fireflies when
Speaker 3: they were kids and they just fell in love and
Speaker 3: they've been in love with fireflies ever since. It's like
Speaker 3: a childhood nostalgia thing for many people. I grew up
Speaker 3: in Connecticut, but I don't remember seeing fireflies until I
Speaker 3: was actually in school in North Carolina and I was
Speaker 3: a marine biologist, and I was waiting to go to
Speaker 3: the field in Belize where I was studying coral ref ecology.
Speaker 3: And I was sitting out on my back porch and
Speaker 3: with my dog, and it was like late afternoon, and
Speaker 3: a thunderstorm was rolling in, and so suddenly it got
Speaker 3: darker and darker and darker, and just before it started
Speaker 3: to rain, I noticed that all around us in the grass,
Speaker 3: there were these lights that were coming out of the
Speaker 3: grass and slowly rising up, and there were like these
Speaker 3: silent sparks like embers, coming out of the grass and
Speaker 3: just filling the air all around me. And it was like, WHOA,
Speaker 3: what is going on here? That is the first time,
Speaker 3: honestly I remember seeing fireflies. It was like, huh, this
Speaker 3: is amazing.
Speaker 1: When did you sort of turn your sail from the
Speaker 1: marine studies back to land?
Speaker 3: Yeah, well you know, it's been a kind of evolution
Speaker 3: of interests. And one of the great things about being
Speaker 3: in academia is that you have like you can kind
Speaker 3: of follow your curiossity. And that night, actually my curiosity
Speaker 3: got sparked, and I started to wonder, like, what the
Speaker 3: heck is going on here? Like who is flying? What
Speaker 3: are they flashing about, who are they talking to? What
Speaker 3: are they saying? And so in my copious free time,
Speaker 3: I got to sort of investigate some of those questions
Speaker 3: and reach out to the to the firefly experts that
Speaker 3: I could find in the US and elsewhere, and to
Speaker 3: start to put together, like what do we know about fireflies?
Speaker 3: And what are the big sort of missing pieces, what
Speaker 3: don't we know and where can I contribute to trying
Speaker 3: to answer some of these questions. And so after I
Speaker 3: got my PhD.
Speaker 1: Doctor Lewis got her PhD in coral reef ecology in
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty four from Duke University in North Carolina.
Speaker 3: I moved to Massachusetts and started working on fireflies. And
Speaker 3: I don't want to say that I've worked continuously on fireflies,
Speaker 3: but a lot of the work that my students and
Speaker 3: I have done has been looking at the kind of
Speaker 3: intimate details of firefly sex lives and courts chip and
Speaker 3: it's been really fascinating. We've been able to like discover
Speaker 3: all this, you know, really really cool stuff.
Speaker 1: Would you say that's primarily why they're flashing their morse code?
Speaker 1: Is that pretty much booty calls, like in a literal sense, yep.
Speaker 3: Yep, yep, yep, yep it is. And yeah, so it's
Speaker 3: subtle and there are you know, there's all kinds of
Speaker 3: innuendo in there, and if you're just looking at it
Speaker 3: from the gross point of view, it's like, yeah, they're
Speaker 3: just kind of flashing back and forth and trying to
Speaker 3: find mates, but really they're actually trying to find like
Speaker 3: the best mates, and the females are really choosy and
Speaker 3: the males are really competitive, and they're doing all this stuff.
Speaker 3: All of this information is being passed in this beautiful
Speaker 3: visual channel that people can actually see. So, you know,
Speaker 3: a lot of insects communicate on other kinds of channels,
Speaker 3: like you know, smell or sound or ultrasound, different kinds
Speaker 3: of things that are a little bit harder to eavesdrop on.
Speaker 3: But fireflies are a beautiful thing because all of this
Speaker 3: courtship exchange is going on in visual signals that are
Speaker 3: really really easy for human beings to see, to record
Speaker 3: using electronic devices, and also to play back. And so
Speaker 3: one of the things that my students and I have
Speaker 3: been able to do is to evesdrop on the courtship
Speaker 3: conversations of these different kinds of fireflies and then to
Speaker 3: be able to play back, just to tweak the signals
Speaker 3: that males are giving a little bit, make them a
Speaker 3: little bit faster, make them a little bit longer, make
Speaker 3: them a little bit slower, and then play them back
Speaker 3: to female fireflies. And one of the great things about
Speaker 3: this isn't true for all fireflies, but a whole lot
Speaker 3: of the fireflies in the US engage in a we
Speaker 3: call it a courtship dialogue. So they talk back and forth.
Speaker 3: So the males are flying around, they're advertising their availability
Speaker 3: with this pretty stereotyped signal, and the females respond to
Speaker 3: these male signals if they like the male. If they
Speaker 3: don't like the male, they shut up. She ghosted you.
Speaker 3: They don't say anything at all. And so you can
Speaker 3: actually find out what a firefly female is thinking about
Speaker 3: a signal by just asking her and so It's kind
Speaker 3: of like conducting an opinion poll, right, you say, or
Speaker 3: you know, going to the eye doctor. You know, they
Speaker 3: put those lens things on you and they say, you know,
Speaker 3: is this better or is this better? Is this better?
Speaker 3: Or is this better? And you can do that to
Speaker 3: a female firefly and she will tell you, yeah, this
Speaker 3: is the signal that I like, wow.
Speaker 1: Are you doing that with little like led lights?
Speaker 3: Yes? Really exactly. Yeah, So that's been kind of fun.
Speaker 3: And one of the things that we discovered is that
Speaker 3: female fireflies are really kind of choosy about who they
Speaker 3: respond to. If the female doesn't respond, of course the
Speaker 3: male can't see her it's dark and so he won't
Speaker 3: be able to find her and mate. But if she
Speaker 3: does respond, there's like a whole frenzy. You know, she
Speaker 3: responds to one male, a whole bunch of males might
Speaker 3: see her. It gets to be like this very very
Speaker 3: exciting competitive dating scene. So yeah, I guess a lot
Speaker 3: of my adult life has been spent following fireflies around
Speaker 3: at night and watching their courtship and mating. It's a
Speaker 3: little strange.
Speaker 1: What kinds of questions and answers are they looking for?
Speaker 2: Are they looking for?
Speaker 3: Who?
Speaker 1: Has the shortest pulses or the longest light or is
Speaker 1: it species specific?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it differs with different species, but in general, it
Speaker 3: seems to be the females are looking for males that
Speaker 3: are a little bit more conspicuous within the parameters of
Speaker 3: their species specific flash code, right, a little bit more
Speaker 3: conspicuous than other males. So in some of the species
Speaker 3: where the males are giving like a single bleep, bleep, bleep,
Speaker 3: females will be looking for slightly longer leaps, not necessarily
Speaker 3: something that you could see with your eye or that
Speaker 3: you're with your brain with a human brain, but the
Speaker 3: brain of a female firefly can make those distinctions and
Speaker 3: they choose to respond to males that have slightly longer
Speaker 3: durations of those single flashes. And one of the things
Speaker 3: that we weren't actually looking for this, but one of
Speaker 3: the things that we discovered was that one of the
Speaker 3: reasons that female fireflies are so choosy is that males
Speaker 3: are giving females a present to the females. And it's
Speaker 3: called a nuptial gift, and totally that's really the scientific
Speaker 3: for it. It's like one of the best non jargon
Speaker 3: scientific terms, Like everybody understands the nuptial guest.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what it is.
Speaker 3: So during mating, male fireflies are giving females not just
Speaker 3: their gammets, right, not just their sperm, but also this package.
Speaker 3: And it's a really beautiful thing. It's like this very
Speaker 3: elaborate structure. If you happen to look inside a male firefly,
Speaker 3: which you know, probably most people never have a chance
Speaker 3: to do, but it's incredible what's inside. They don't really
Speaker 3: have a digestive tract or any of the other like
Speaker 3: you know, liver, spleen, stomach, all that stuff that we
Speaker 3: think of as internal organs. Their internal organs are basically
Speaker 3: reproductive glands that manufacture this elaborate package that is full
Speaker 3: of nutrients and they transfer that internally to the female
Speaker 3: while they're mating. And the males that have the more
Speaker 3: desirable lashes also turn out in many cases to have
Speaker 3: the larger nuptial gifts. And the nuptial gifts are a
Speaker 3: big deal for the females because they are full of protein,
Speaker 3: among other things that the female then can use to
Speaker 3: provision her eggs, and so females that get more nuptial
Speaker 3: gifts actually are able to lay more eggs. So that's
Speaker 3: a cool thing. I mean, why not choose.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean if you kind of know through advertising
Speaker 1: like okay, longer pulse, bigger gift, then there you go,
Speaker 1: like bigger sandwich, he's gonna bring me.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, we call it firefly bling.
Speaker 1: Just a side note. Right before recording this a few
Speaker 1: weeks ago, I was cranky as hell and I could
Speaker 1: not figure out why. And then I realized that we
Speaker 1: had run out of coffee that morning, and so Jared
Speaker 1: then simply my fiance ran out to get my favorite latte,
Speaker 1: as kind of a pre nuptial gift, one might say,
Speaker 1: And my tiny brain was indeed impressed, and I was
Speaker 1: very grateful to have those nutrients. And I feel like
Speaker 1: it's important to note that he did not deliver this
Speaker 1: latte internally or during a copulatory act, because I'm not.
Speaker 2: I don't have that big a coffee problem.
Speaker 1: And what about you? Are you a night person? How
Speaker 1: much of your work involves these really long nights?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's crazy. You know, I don't know what people
Speaker 3: who live in the tropics were. Firefly season is all
Speaker 3: year round. I don't know how they survive because you know,
Speaker 3: in the temperate zone, you have a kind of a
Speaker 3: short firefly season. It might go from I don't know,
Speaker 3: like May until September, or maybe just June, July, August.
Speaker 3: And during the firefly season, my students and I basically
Speaker 3: we work day and night. We get so strung out
Speaker 3: it's ridiculous. We can't even think straight. People hate us,
Speaker 3: our partners like leave us, our dog, you know, walks out.
Speaker 3: It's really bad. You can do it for a few
Speaker 3: years and then you have to take a break. But
Speaker 3: you know, we're usually out in the field at night,
Speaker 3: and then we are often doing lab experiments with fireflies
Speaker 3: that we've collected from the field and then put on
Speaker 3: a reverse like light cycle so that they think it's
Speaker 3: nighttime when it's actually daytime. And so during the day
Speaker 3: we work in a dark room on fireflies that think
Speaker 3: it's night. So you can get kind of strung out
Speaker 3: on that for after a while, but you know, it's
Speaker 3: it's all worth it. Yeah, it's fabulous to be able
Speaker 3: to bring some of the magic of these creatures to
Speaker 3: light and to let people know, you know, that they're
Speaker 3: real and they're really really kind of amazing.
Speaker 2: They're real and they're spectacular.
Speaker 1: And you mentioned the tropics and the temperate zones. Does
Speaker 1: that mean that they don't inhabit like arid climates as much?
Speaker 1: Why don't we have them in California.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So another myth that I I am actually really
Speaker 3: glad to well happy to be able to debunk is
Speaker 3: that a lot of people think that there aren't any
Speaker 3: fireflies in the Western United States and that's not true.
Speaker 3: So happy, you should be happy. You should be happy
Speaker 3: because there are. So there's at least three different kinds
Speaker 3: of fireflies. There's the daytime fireflies. They fly during the daytime.
Speaker 3: The adults don't light up even though the larvae do.
Speaker 3: They're still in the same firefly family. There's lots of
Speaker 3: those in California and in the West. There are also
Speaker 3: glow worm fireflies, where the females typically well the females
Speaker 3: glow typically they are worm like, as in, they don't fly.
Speaker 3: And there's really really cool glow worm fireflies on the
Speaker 3: West Coast, including you got to google this, the California
Speaker 3: pink glow worm. Oh my god, there's so beautiful. They
Speaker 3: are really beautiful and they're all over California. And I
Speaker 3: don't know why people don't recognize those as fireflies. The
Speaker 3: males don't light off, but the females do. They glow
Speaker 3: for hours to attract these flying unlit males, and they're
Speaker 3: really really cool.
Speaker 1: Okay, hold the phone, boy, Howdy hot damn what?
Speaker 2: Okay?
Speaker 1: So I'm a lifelong Californian, absolute sniveling simp for bugs,
Speaker 1: and yet this is the first I'm hearing ever of
Speaker 1: the pink glowworm alias the firefly beetle, microphotos and gustus. Now,
Speaker 1: the ladies stay kind of babylike in a larva ish form,
Speaker 1: and they just cruise the leaf litter, kind of like
Speaker 1: salmon colored segmented tiny hot dogs. And then their soulmates
Speaker 1: are dude beetles who fly around, not glowing, but just
Speaker 1: looking out for butts. Now, I have spent my life
Speaker 1: jealous of New Jersey and ignoring all of these horny,
Speaker 1: babylike sparkle butts under my California nose. But as long
Speaker 1: as we're getting regional, I covered this ages ago in
Speaker 1: in minnesot You probably never heard. But do you call
Speaker 1: them you personally? Do you call them fireflies or lightning bugs?
Speaker 1: Take a moment, vote aloud while you're layering up a
Speaker 1: lasagna or welding something or brushing a chinchilla.
Speaker 2: Lightning bugs.
Speaker 1: Okay, I hope one of you said peeni walies. Because
Speaker 1: a University of Cambridge linguistics professor by the name of
Speaker 1: Bert Voe also needed to know firefly or lightning bug.
Speaker 1: So he asked ten thousand Americans what they call sparkle butts.
Speaker 1: Forty percent of you go either way, firefly, lightning bug,
Speaker 1: you don't care. Thirty percent of us are exclusively team firefly. Hello,
Speaker 1: West Coast High Massachusetts, and about another thirty percent say yeah, no,
Speaker 1: it's lightning bug. The South greetings to you. But to
Speaker 1: my delight and probably Professor Voe's the futtlement, zero point
Speaker 1: two percent of those people he polled call these glowing
Speaker 1: summer acuties peenie wallies. So that's two people in a
Speaker 1: study of ten thousand, and if they are not already friends, oh,
Speaker 1: I hope they find each other. I want them to
Speaker 1: hold hands and just stare into the summer dusk. So
Speaker 1: my point is we need not be a nation divided
Speaker 1: on the topic of peenie wallies, especially now, because.
Speaker 3: And the other exciting news and this is something that
Speaker 3: we're really just actually, this is really really recent that
Speaker 3: we have begun to realize that there are flashing fireflies
Speaker 3: in the Western United States. So there's actually there's a
Speaker 3: Western Firefly Project that's run out of the Natural History
Speaker 3: Museum of Utah and they've been mapping flashing fireflies in Utah, Nevada,
Speaker 3: nearby states for since twenty fourteen. There's a new project
Speaker 3: called the New Mexico Firefly Project. There's flashing fireflies in
Speaker 3: New Mata, Mexico. In Colorado. I heard a rumor there
Speaker 3: might be flashing fireflies in Oregon. So a lot of
Speaker 3: this is very very recent, and a lot of it
Speaker 3: is based on citizen science, like community science observations, just
Speaker 3: people going out into the night looking for fireflies in
Speaker 3: different places where there are certain characteristics like moisture like
Speaker 3: darkness and food for the firefly larvae. So yeah, it's
Speaker 3: really exciting there are Western fireflies. That's a myth that
Speaker 3: it just gives me great pleasure to be able to say, no,
Speaker 3: not true. You do have them, and they're really really beautiful.
Speaker 1: So yeah, So if you've been asking fireflies, where have
Speaker 1: you been all my life? The answer is perhaps closer
Speaker 1: than you thought. Right here, literally with a flashing butt.
Speaker 1: You just didn't notice. But where have we been all
Speaker 1: of their lives? How long do they spend in the
Speaker 1: inky evenings? What's up with our life cycle?
Speaker 3: Yes, so one of the things that people who believe
Speaker 3: that fireflies are real and maybe have even seen fireflies,
Speaker 3: many people don't realize that what we're looking at when
Speaker 3: we see these ethereal adults flying around in the night,
Speaker 3: we're just looking at the very very tip of the
Speaker 3: firefly life cycle. Like that, it's the tip of the iceberg.
Speaker 3: Fireflies spend up to two years living their lives in
Speaker 3: a completely different environment. So fireflies are beetles, and like
Speaker 3: other beetles, they go through complete metamorphosis. So the adult firefly,
Speaker 3: the female layser eggs, the eggs hatch out into lit
Speaker 3: the tiny firefly larvae.
Speaker 1: So there are a few thousand species of fireflies, and
Speaker 1: as adults, they're between five and twenty five millimeters long,
Speaker 1: just an inch long at the biggest, but in their
Speaker 1: larval forms little and they're hungry.
Speaker 3: And it's the larval stage where they are they're eating,
Speaker 3: and they're actually they're predators. They're voracious predators. They're really
Speaker 3: kind of fearsome voracious predators because they live underground and
Speaker 3: sometimes in rotting wood, sometimes in leaf litter, and they're
Speaker 3: burrowing around and they're looking for soft bodied things like earthworms, slugs, snails,
Speaker 3: and that's what they eat. And even though they're tiny,
Speaker 3: they have the ability to bite and paralyze prey that's
Speaker 3: many many, many times bigger than themselves. So a couple
Speaker 3: of firefly larvae can take down a really big earthworm,
Speaker 3: paralyze it so that it basically can't move, it's still alive,
Speaker 3: can't move, still alive, can't move, and then they will, Yeah,
Speaker 3: they'll just feast on that earthworm for days and days
Speaker 3: and days and days.
Speaker 1: Do they hunt in packs?
Speaker 2: Are they hunting in packs like wolves?
Speaker 3: Yeah? You know, we don't actually know what they do
Speaker 3: in the field, but there are many observations of and
Speaker 3: I've seen it myself in the lab. Firefly larvae will
Speaker 3: gather together in groups to take down an earthworm. And
Speaker 3: you see them. Oh man, it's just kind of gory.
Speaker 3: Like I've walked into at night, Like you're just walking
Speaker 3: by and you have this little container where you have
Speaker 3: firefly larvae. Right, everybody has this in their house.
Speaker 1: Oh the delight It brought me to think of a
Speaker 1: firefly expert tossing their mail onto a kitchen counternext to
Speaker 1: a deli cup of thriving larvae. Sarah just has these
Speaker 1: things in her casual possession, of course, man if I
Speaker 1: had a container of firefly larvae, for every container of
Speaker 1: firefly larva I had in my house, Oh.
Speaker 3: And a couple of earthworms. And you see that there's
Speaker 3: all this glowing and they're all lined up along the earthworm,
Speaker 3: and all the firefly larvae are glowing and they're all
Speaker 3: they just have their jaws sunk into the earthworm, and
Speaker 3: the earthworm isn't moving at all, and they're lined up like,
Speaker 3: you know, kind of like sucking pigs. They're just like
Speaker 3: all lined up sucking earthworm like an earthworm smoothie. It's
Speaker 3: it's a little it's a little alarming and slightly disgusting.
Speaker 3: But anyways, that's what that's the that's the backstory of
Speaker 3: those ethereal adults is that they are larvae for up
Speaker 3: to two years, depending on the latitude, and during that
Speaker 3: time they're just they're just you know, they're just eating
Speaker 3: and growing, eating and growing, eating and growing. And then
Speaker 3: when they get big enough they pupate, you know, kind
Speaker 3: of like a butterfly, the metamorphose into an adult. The
Speaker 3: adult fireflies only live a couple of weeks, so very
Speaker 3: very short lived, and all they're doing is reproducing. Most
Speaker 3: adult fireflies don't eat anything at all once they once
Speaker 3: they reach that stage, and so they're spending down the
Speaker 3: capital that they have accumulation, all the resources that they've
Speaker 3: managed to accumulate as larvae, it's getting spent down in
Speaker 3: all of their reproductive activity. They're flying around their nuptial gifts.
Speaker 3: So the nuptial gifts are kind of a big thing
Speaker 3: in the firefly economics right because they're expensive for males
Speaker 3: to produce. They're spending down their capital with every nuptial
Speaker 3: gift that they're making, and they're really valuable for females
Speaker 3: because she doesn't have any other income. It's just a
Speaker 3: nuptial gift.
Speaker 1: So, wow, just revisit this drama with me, if you
Speaker 1: will come on this journey. So let's say you're a baby.
Speaker 1: You're a human baby, a small, chubby baby who must grow.
Speaker 1: So you post up with other babies around a giant
Speaker 1: paralyzed worm like a beached whale, and you and all
Speaker 1: these babies just devour this whale like carcass until it's gone,
Speaker 1: and you do this for years. Imagine if humans spent
Speaker 1: most of our lifespans in focused bloodlust, eating raw meat,
Speaker 1: and then in the very twilight of life, like when
Speaker 1: we're eight, we finally go through puberty, and for the
Speaker 1: equivalent of like the last year of our human lives,
Speaker 1: out comes a different looking person with a glowing disco
Speaker 1: ass that makes people so horny and the world loves us.
Speaker 1: We're so beautiful. People assume we're not even real. And
Speaker 1: then all that flesh we ate all of our lives
Speaker 1: as babies. We use that fuel to pay baby mamas
Speaker 1: so the kids will never meet, can survive and follow
Speaker 1: in our sparkly footsteps. I mean firefly life cycles. What
Speaker 1: a party? Do scientists know why they glow certain colors?
Speaker 1: And where is that bioluminescence coming from? I'm sure your
Speaker 1: background is a marine biologist. A lot of glowing stuff
Speaker 1: in the sea where it's dark, but not a lot
Speaker 1: of glowing stuff up here, so it seems so what's
Speaker 1: it made out of?
Speaker 3: A lot of creatures have independently evolved this amazing fantastic
Speaker 3: ability to produce their own light. It's really fabulous. So
Speaker 3: among terrestrial animals and plants, there's not that many that
Speaker 3: can produce lights, even though produce their own light, even
Speaker 3: though it's really common in the sea. In the sea,
Speaker 3: a lot of marine creatures use their light for as
Speaker 3: a defense or as a way of hiding camouflage, or
Speaker 3: as a way to attract prey, and fireflies use their
Speaker 3: light in many of the same ways. So every single
Speaker 3: juvenile firefly, those baby fireflies I was talking about that
Speaker 3: live underground or in leaf litter, they actually every single
Speaker 3: juvenile firefly can light up even when the adults can't.
Speaker 3: And so we think that the ability this light producing
Speaker 3: talent of fireflies first evolved in the juvenile stage, and
Speaker 3: that it first evolved as a warning signal. So firefly
Speaker 3: larvae and a lot of adult fireflies taste really nasty.
Speaker 3: They manufacture toxins that carry inside their body that are
Speaker 3: distasteful to many insect eating predators. And so you know,
Speaker 3: if you live in the dark and there's no reflected light,
Speaker 3: it doesn't really help to be like brightly colored like
Speaker 3: a monarch butterfly.
Speaker 1: Or say brightly colored poisoned dart frogs or skunk stripes.
Speaker 1: So this yo you do not want. This type of
Speaker 1: coloration has a name, and it's aposemitism, taken from the
Speaker 1: Greek words for away sign and Apossemitism was coined in
Speaker 1: eighteen ninety by a British zoologist who had a mustache
Speaker 1: like a snow white feather, boa Sir Edward Bagnailed Poulton
Speaker 1: in eighteen ninety because one of the pleasures of being
Speaker 1: an animal scientist is that you can make up words
Speaker 1: when you identify the need for them, like sparkle botology.
Speaker 3: All of those usual warning colors don't really work. But
Speaker 3: if you can make a flash of light that turns
Speaker 3: out to be a very very memorable kind of warning
Speaker 3: to that flashes out in the darkness, you know I
Speaker 3: am toxic. Do not even think about eating me. And
Speaker 3: so it was so the first fireflies. By reconstructing their
Speaker 3: evolutionary history, we have figured out scientists have figured out
Speaker 3: that the very first fireflies, the adults, didn't light up
Speaker 3: at all, and it wasn't until many million years later
Speaker 3: that adult, some adult fireflies managed to co opt that
Speaker 3: larval bioluminescence and turn it into the quick bright flashes
Speaker 3: that the flashing fireflies now used to find their mates.
Speaker 3: So fireflies started out warning signal and then later on
Speaker 3: turned it to courtship. It's kind of romantic, right.
Speaker 1: Imagine a dating app. It's like, oh my god, you're toxic.
Speaker 1: I'm toxic, and then you just can't stop sending texts
Speaker 1: with your thoughts. That's the firefly life. And so this
Speaker 1: week for this encore, Doctor Lewis would like to keep
Speaker 1: these lovers alive and ask that her donation go to
Speaker 1: Fireflyers International dot Net, which, as the name suggests, it's
Speaker 1: a global effort to catalyze the conservation of fireflies and
Speaker 1: their habitats. They do it through research to identify and
Speaker 1: prioritize the species that are facing extinction. They design and
Speaker 1: translate and distribute fact sheets on firefly diversity. They identify threats,
Speaker 1: and they support advocacy, such as, for example, raising awareness
Speaker 1: during events like World Firefly Day, which is this week.
Speaker 1: It's July fifth and sixth, So celebrate a firefly, share
Speaker 1: this episode with people, post about it, do some community science.
Speaker 1: Firefly's debut so that is Fireflyers International dot net and
Speaker 1: that is linked in the show notes, and that donation
Speaker 1: we made in her name was possible by some word
Speaker 1: approved sponsors of the show, who you may hear about. Now, Okay,
Speaker 1: you were in the dark with some firefly facts and
Speaker 1: Sarah I had illuminating answers.
Speaker 2: Let's hear them.
Speaker 1: I have so many questions from listeners. Megan Walker wants
Speaker 1: to know if you clap or make noise, do they flash.
Speaker 1: My dad told me that as a kid, and it
Speaker 1: mostly seems to work, but I'm also skeptical that it's
Speaker 1: just coincidence.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So fireflies respond to a threat by often respond
Speaker 3: to a threat by making light because it is a
Speaker 3: warning signal. And so if you have a firefly and
Speaker 3: it's you know, just kind of hanging out in a container,
Speaker 3: and you vibrate that container or knock on it or
Speaker 3: you know, slap the side of the container, a firefly
Speaker 3: will often flash. And so it's possible that clapping might
Speaker 3: be perceived as a disturbance and they would they would
Speaker 3: light up as a way of saying, hey, don't eat me,
Speaker 3: I'm here. You know I'm toxic. Can you not do that?
Speaker 2: Got it?
Speaker 1: Okay, So many people wanted to know about catching them
Speaker 1: and if you catch them, put them in.
Speaker 2: A jar with grass. How bad is it for them?
Speaker 2: And will they die immediately? No?
Speaker 3: I think it's actually, you know, I love that people
Speaker 3: catch fireflies and then release them. I think it's a
Speaker 3: really it's a beautiful thing. I think the more people
Speaker 3: that can appreciate these miraculous luminous beings the better. And
Speaker 3: what better way to do it than to like get
Speaker 3: up close and personal with them. So yeah, I think
Speaker 3: that as long as people realize that, you know, if
Speaker 3: you catch a firefly, handle it, really catch it with
Speaker 3: a net, handle it really gently coax it into a
Speaker 3: jar with some as you say, with grass, maybe a
Speaker 3: little bit of damp not like sopping wet, but damp
Speaker 3: paper towel, even a little tiny piece of apple. They'll
Speaker 3: really really like the moisture from the apple and the
Speaker 3: sugars that are in the apple. And you know, watch
Speaker 3: them overnight, make sure they have a lot of moisture
Speaker 3: in the jar, and then let them go into the
Speaker 3: same habitat where you collected them next day. The only
Speaker 3: so I'm all in favor of catch and release for fireflies,
Speaker 3: there's one caution that I have to mention, which is
Speaker 3: that this happened to my nephew many years ago. He
Speaker 3: was visiting from California. He was visiting in Vermont, and
Speaker 3: he was really excited to see fireflies, and he went
Speaker 3: out and he caught a whole bunch and he put
Speaker 3: him in a jar, and he put them on the
Speaker 3: night table next to his bed. And during the night
Speaker 3: he woke up and he actually saw a very very
Speaker 3: gory scene, which is pretty common. Some of the fireflies
Speaker 3: were eating some of the other fireflies. So I haven't
Speaker 3: really mentioned this, but there's a particular group of fireflies
Speaker 3: just in North America. Yeah, we're proud, and they are
Speaker 3: predators of other fireflies. And what was going on in
Speaker 3: Nate's jar was that he had accidentally caught some of
Speaker 3: the prey fireflies and a couple of the predator fireflies,
Speaker 3: and the predator fireflies were like so excited and they
Speaker 3: were feasting on the other fireflies, and man, he was
Speaker 3: like he screamed in the middle of the night. We
Speaker 3: had to get up and go running into his room.
Speaker 3: He was fine, the fireflies were not. And then we
Speaker 3: had to explain like the whole you know, predation thing,
Speaker 3: and yeah, so be careful to only include the little guys.
Speaker 3: And none of the big predatory ones.
Speaker 1: Oh no, so yes, faux tourists. These predatory females, whom
Speaker 1: Sarah has called them fatale of lightning bugs are great
Speaker 1: at doing impressions of other species, but they're not great
Speaker 1: at making their own lusibufagens lusiboofageans sure, which are steroid
Speaker 1: compounds that make them less tasty to birds and spiders
Speaker 1: and such. So catfishing and preying on other glowing beetles
Speaker 1: gives them more defense against predators. So for those who
Speaker 1: wish that there were raves that were also gladiatorial matches, congratulations, Gus,
Speaker 1: your time has arrived. Dave is Born, Andy Hardkey, Kevin Glover,
Speaker 1: Lisa Ma. Want to know why do they smell that way?
Speaker 3: Do they know? Yes, that's so interesting, what great questions.
Speaker 3: Thank you all. So, when you handle fireflies, they do
Speaker 3: give off a particular odor, and that odor is part
Speaker 3: of their sort of we call it a multimodal defense mechanism,
Speaker 3: but it's they have the light that they're using as
Speaker 3: a warning. They have a kind of smell, a voll
Speaker 3: little smell that they release that warns potential predators that
Speaker 3: they are going to taste bad. And then if you
Speaker 3: were to taste a firefly, which I don't recommend you would,
Speaker 3: or even like, you know, gently bite into a firefly,
Speaker 3: which I don't recommend, fireflies release a tiny droplet of blood,
Speaker 3: and the blood that circulates inside their body the contains
Speaker 3: a toxin that is very, very deadly to many vertebrate predators.
Speaker 3: So yeah, that smell is something that a lot of
Speaker 3: people don't even notice it, but it's really really noticeable.
Speaker 3: If you hold a firefly in your hand, just hold
Speaker 3: it up to your nose, they get disturbed if you're
Speaker 3: capturing them, and then they have that particular odor, and yeah,
Speaker 3: that's cool. It's part of their defense against getting eaten.
Speaker 1: Side note, I have never sniffed a peni wally, but
Speaker 1: the Internet told me that they smell like the following
Speaker 1: adjectives musky, cucumber esque.
Speaker 2: And buggy.
Speaker 1: Oh yes, buggy. It's very helpful either way. The taste
Speaker 1: and those aforementioned lusibufagen steroids can make a frog or
Speaker 1: a bird thing twice and maybe barfit right up. Although
Speaker 1: plenty of folks report seeing fireflies illuminating the stomachs of
Speaker 1: their predators, which is kind of like being eaten by
Speaker 1: an alligator, yet continuing to swipe on tinder from its murky,
Speaker 1: disgusting belly. But yes, that sparkle buttology smell is the
Speaker 1: sweet odor of love and warnings.
Speaker 3: Aha.
Speaker 2: So sniff a.
Speaker 3: Firefly, sniff fire yeah or tonight yeah? Uh.
Speaker 1: Natella wants to know why do fireflies like overgrown grass
Speaker 1: more than cut grass and what can people with yards
Speaker 1: do to encourage more fireflies?
Speaker 3: Absolutely? So, one of the things about fireflies is that
Speaker 3: they need the same kinds of things that all of
Speaker 3: us need, right So, they need food, they need shelter,
Speaker 3: they need moisture, and so if you can provide those things,
Speaker 3: you can usually encourage fireflies, if they're around in your area,
Speaker 3: to move into your yard. And so one really important
Speaker 3: thing for all of the stages of all the life
Speaker 3: stages of the firefly is moisture. And so longer grass
Speaker 3: holds moisture better, It holds moisture in the soil better,
Speaker 3: and it will be more conducive for females to lay
Speaker 3: their eggs at the base of the grass and for
Speaker 3: the larvae to develop in that habitat. It's also better
Speaker 3: for longer grasses better for all the soil organisms like
Speaker 3: the earthworms and all those things that the baby fireflies
Speaker 3: are eating as prey. I guess the biggest thing if
Speaker 3: you want to promote fireflies in your in your yard
Speaker 3: is to leave your grass long or better yet, make
Speaker 3: it into a wildflower meadow plants. Some fireflies also need darkness.
Speaker 3: So a lot of the work that we are currently
Speaker 3: doing at my lab at TOUGHS focuses on light pollution
Speaker 3: and how light pollution impacts fireflies. And it turns out
Speaker 3: that lights, even pretty dim lights, can really really disrupt
Speaker 3: the courts chip dialogue of fireflies. So if you have
Speaker 3: like layers of shrubs and trees, if you happen to
Speaker 3: have street lights around or other lights that are shining
Speaker 3: into your yard, having a lot of layers of vegetation
Speaker 3: will help make dark places where the fireflies can court.
Speaker 1: So you're not letting your lawn go to shit. You're
Speaker 1: making a romantic environment where sparkle, but beetles can get nasty.
Speaker 1: So what else do you need to do to set
Speaker 1: the mood and help them thrive?
Speaker 3: So fireflies need dark lights, they need moisture, and they
Speaker 3: also fireflies are insects, and so you definitely do not
Speaker 3: want to be treating your yard or your garden with
Speaker 3: any kind of broad spectrum insecticides because anything that you remember,
Speaker 3: the baby fireflies spend months to years living underground. So
Speaker 3: if you're treating your yard, or if you happen to
Speaker 3: have a lawn and you're treating it for Japanese beetle grubs,
Speaker 3: you're going to be killing the firefly larvae that live
Speaker 3: in the lawn too. So be really really thoughtful about
Speaker 3: using insecticides only where and when you need them, try
Speaker 3: to target them to specific pests. And then also, in
Speaker 3: addition to sort of shad shading your yard, if you
Speaker 3: have a place where there's fireflies and you can control
Speaker 3: the light in that firefly habitat, just turn your lights
Speaker 3: off during the firefly mating season. Give them a little privacy,
Speaker 3: you know, let do their thing, and then you know,
Speaker 3: in the wintertime you can have your lights back on
Speaker 3: again as much as you want. But if you can
Speaker 3: shield your lights or dim them or put them on
Speaker 3: timers so that they're off during the firefly mating season,
Speaker 3: that would be really that's a great way to attract
Speaker 3: fireflies to your yard.
Speaker 1: Great Alexis Cully first time question asker wants to know
Speaker 1: if any fireflies flash different colors.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so there are slightly different colors and they so
Speaker 3: there are tiny, tiny differences in the shape of the
Speaker 3: enzyme luciferase that produces that's inside the firefly lantern, and
Speaker 3: that is one of the players that produces the actually
Speaker 3: is a catalyst for the bioluminescence, and so tiny differences
Speaker 3: in the shape of that enzyme actually create different colors.
Speaker 3: And so in North America we have fireflies that range
Speaker 3: from yellow. So a lot of the fireflies that are
Speaker 3: flashing in the early evening have sort of a lime
Speaker 3: green or yellow color bioluminescence. There's other groups of fireflies
Speaker 3: that have a more amber colored bioluminescence. And then there's
Speaker 3: some late night fireflies that flash with a very green biluminescence.
Speaker 3: And so they do have different colors.
Speaker 1: Oh, okay, do any change their colors like an led
Speaker 1: light at all loud?
Speaker 3: That would be cool. Not yet, but I think they're
Speaker 3: working on it. We're looking for mutations right now.
Speaker 1: Oh amazing, Oh, so many great questions. Casey Hanmer wrote
Speaker 1: in and said, I think Lucifers is an amazing name
Speaker 1: for a child but my wife says, no, what the
Speaker 1: fuck help me out.
Speaker 3: Yes, luciferse I love it. Yeah, you know, hey, Ace, Yes,
Speaker 3: it's great.
Speaker 1: That is great, and it means light right, lucifera comes
Speaker 1: means light great.
Speaker 3: Right, lucifrase means light bearer. It's a beautiful name for
Speaker 3: a kid.
Speaker 1: Also, how Satan biblically became Lucifer may have just been
Speaker 1: the results of a translation snafu involving the Hebrew word
Speaker 1: for howell. So casey, Christine named that next kid luciferes.
Speaker 2: Do you have our blessing?
Speaker 1: And patron Nathan Algrim wrote in to say that they
Speaker 1: saw their first blue ghosts this summer and it was
Speaker 1: quote trippy in the best way possible. And I'm glad
Speaker 1: for Nathan that this experience wasn't trippy in the worst
Speaker 1: way possible, which would have been an encounter with Hallucifer himself.
Speaker 1: But yes, you were not alone when it came to
Speaker 1: wondering about blue ghost fireflies and why they are such
Speaker 1: low flying marvels. Oh and Milakuda wants to know what's
Speaker 1: the deal with blue ghost fireflies?
Speaker 3: M hmm, the deal with blue ghost fireflies? They are magic,
Speaker 3: totally magic. So this is a firefly that's found throughout
Speaker 3: the southeastern United States in the southern Appalachian Mountains, and
Speaker 3: they're really really cool because they're a glowworm of firefly.
Speaker 3: The females are tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny. They don't
Speaker 3: have any wings. They cannot fly. They are totally earthbound,
Speaker 3: which is sad, but they're also really beautiful. They're like
Speaker 3: these beautiful little jewels that are hidden in the forest
Speaker 3: and the leaf litter in the forest. The males light
Speaker 3: up in this case and they fly around with a
Speaker 3: very very long, like minutes long glow, And for reasons
Speaker 3: that remain a bit elusive, but have something to do
Speaker 3: with sort of the physics of light, their light looks blue,
Speaker 3: but if you record the light with a spect like
Speaker 3: a spectrograph, it actually turns out to be green. Oh,
Speaker 3: so they're called blue ghosts because they look kind of
Speaker 3: blueish when they're when it's reflected off the vegetation and so,
Speaker 3: but they're really glowing green. And one of the things
Speaker 3: about the blue ghost fireflies that's quite remarkable is that
Speaker 3: they've gotten to be a pretty big tourist attraction in
Speaker 3: the past few years, and fireflies in many places are
Speaker 3: actually kind of flickering out. In most cases, it's because
Speaker 3: their habitat is being lost. In some cases it's because
Speaker 3: their local population is being threatened by either light pollution
Speaker 3: or even tourism. And so the blue ghost fireflies are
Speaker 3: particularly susceptible to too much attention from tourists. When the
Speaker 3: season begins, the females are down in the leaf litter
Speaker 3: and on the forest floor, and so if there's a
Speaker 3: lot of people who are walking through their habitat, they
Speaker 3: actually don't. They're often looking at the males that are
Speaker 3: flying around and not really realizing that they could be
Speaker 3: accidentally trampling these tiny females and also the larvae, and
Speaker 3: also the eggs, and also the pupie. And it's the
Speaker 3: females that are carrying like the next generation of fireflies.
Speaker 3: So when people are going to see blue ghost fireflies,
Speaker 3: I do highly recommend going to see them, but stay
Speaker 3: on the trail, don't walk off into the forest, because
Speaker 3: you might be trampling on those beautiful little females.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then, which is probably the last thing people
Speaker 1: want to be doing without realizing that they're doing it.
Speaker 3: So yeah, yeah, you wouldn't. How would you ever know, yeah.
Speaker 1: Patrons, Alie Gibson, first time question asker, Ivally Sanchez, Chris Moore,
Speaker 1: Ali barg Rose, Moon Yards and so many people. Claire Weldon,
Speaker 1: Tiagan Mortimer, first time question asker, Anthony, Katie Courtwright, Alex
Speaker 1: Stall have said wanted to know about the numbers of fireflies.
Speaker 1: Anthony says, why is it some years we have tons
Speaker 1: and tons and other years almost none? And Claire says,
Speaker 1: I've heard a lot the last few years about major
Speaker 1: declines and firefly populations. Alex Stall says, growing up, I
Speaker 1: remember seeing fireflies all the time, but it's been ages
Speaker 1: since I saw any. How are they doing and what
Speaker 1: can we.
Speaker 2: Do to help?
Speaker 3: Great questions? Yes, thank you. So, you know, like other insects,
Speaker 3: fireflies have good years and bad years, and so in
Speaker 3: a really really dry year, there's a lot of mortality,
Speaker 3: especially of the larvae, and so there won't be as
Speaker 3: many fireflies. The adult fireflies are merging the following spring
Speaker 3: and summer, and sometimes in a wet year, you know,
Speaker 3: there's lots of prey they're doing really the larva are
Speaker 3: surviving really well. There'll be a lot of fireflies that year,
Speaker 3: and so they do have good years and bad years,
Speaker 3: but in general, it's a really really common perception, and
Speaker 3: it's something that a lot of firefly experts and you know,
Speaker 3: people on the street have noticed that there just aren't
Speaker 3: as many fireflies as there used to be. And this
Speaker 3: holds across the board around the world. It's not just,
Speaker 3: you know, something that happens in the in the United States.
Speaker 3: And so there are three major things that are responsible
Speaker 3: for declining firefly populations. The first one is the loss
Speaker 3: of suitable habitat. So some fireflies are really really tuned
Speaker 3: into a very particular habitat, like one particular kind of wetland,
Speaker 3: and that's the only place that they can survive. That's
Speaker 3: where their larvae live, that's where the where they can pupate,
Speaker 3: where they can complete their whole life cycle. If you
Speaker 3: wipe out that wetland, those fireflies can't just get up
Speaker 3: and move somewhere else. There are other fireflies that are
Speaker 3: like habitat generalists. They can live in all kinds of places.
Speaker 3: They're doing fine. The habitats specialists are not doing so well.
Speaker 1: So yes, some sparkle butts do well sauntering between various habitats,
Speaker 1: but other tender glowy babies have evolved to thrive in
Speaker 1: only one specific ecological niche.
Speaker 3: So the loss in the degradation of appropriate habitat is
Speaker 3: a really, really big problem for many species of firefly,
Speaker 3: including a bunch of US fireflies that are specialists in
Speaker 3: wetland habitats. The second thing that is really bad for
Speaker 3: fireflies we've already talked about a little bit. They need
Speaker 3: dark nights, and so light pollution is a big threat
Speaker 3: to fireflies around the world, and so you can turn
Speaker 3: off your lights. That's an easy thing to do. Light
Speaker 3: pollution is totally reversible, right, just turned switch. And then
Speaker 3: insecticide is that is a a third major threat to fireflies,
Speaker 3: So pesticides that are applied to the soil or to
Speaker 3: plants that then get into the soil and will kill
Speaker 3: firefly larvae. So, I guess you know. One of the
Speaker 3: things that that we've been doing. So I work with
Speaker 3: the group called Fireflyers International, and one of the things
Speaker 3: that we have been doing is trying to educate people
Speaker 3: about the different life stages of fireflies, the things that
Speaker 3: they need, and to advocate for their protect protection. We've
Speaker 3: been working with the ZERSI Society in the US, and
Speaker 3: you can go to the XERSI Society website. Just google
Speaker 3: zerses fireflies and there's a whole lot of information free
Speaker 3: PDFs that you can download about conserving fireflies and what
Speaker 3: you can do too, and there's actually we have fact
Speaker 3: sheets about fireflies and light pollution, so firefly friendly lighting guidelines,
Speaker 3: and you can get all that stuff at the zerxies website.
Speaker 1: Listen, I get it. You're listening to this while paddling
Speaker 1: a gondola or hurting penguins and you're like, you're my
Speaker 1: internet dad, look it up for me. So ZERCES recommends
Speaker 1: using motion detectors or timers to limit the amount of
Speaker 1: time lights shine, shielding lights so they only illuminate the
Speaker 1: intended areas like a pathway, switching out right outdoor lighting
Speaker 1: for red bulbs, or covering existing bulbs with red filters,
Speaker 1: and closing curtains at night to reduce the amount of
Speaker 1: indoor lights that spuilt outdoors. So more info is up
Speaker 1: at cerces dot org. And also get doctor Sarah Lewis's
Speaker 1: book Silencepark, which is linked in the show notes. It
Speaker 1: will delight and inform you. Also, I just realized when
Speaker 1: I said herting penguins. It sounded like hurting penguins, But
Speaker 1: I'm not like there's a herd of penguins that you're
Speaker 1: I don't want to make a sound like you're just
Speaker 1: out there hurting penguins.
Speaker 2: Anyway, what else can you do?
Speaker 1: Are there any community science projects that people can help
Speaker 1: out with?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so there's so much we don't know about fireflies. So,
Speaker 3: as I mentioned, there's especially a lot we don't know
Speaker 3: about fireflies in the Western US, and so I highly
Speaker 3: recommend the Western Firefly Project. Just google it. And they're
Speaker 3: collecting right now, collecting observations from people all over the
Speaker 3: West of flashing fireflies and that's really exciting. There's a
Speaker 3: New Mexico Firefly Project that just started this year, and
Speaker 3: that's really exciting. People are discovering like all new fireflies.
Speaker 3: We never even knew that they were in some of
Speaker 3: these places. So there's a lot of Really it's a
Speaker 3: very exciting time to be a community scientist for fireflies.
Speaker 3: We really fireflies are out for a short time each
Speaker 3: night and also a short season each year, and so
Speaker 3: we really need many eyes in many places. So those
Speaker 3: are two things Western Firefly Project and the New Mexico
Speaker 3: Firefly Project, and then also across all of the US
Speaker 3: there is Firefly Watch, which is run by Massachusetts AUTUBN
Speaker 3: Society and you can find out more about that community
Speaker 3: science project on their website.
Speaker 1: So twenty twenty five, Alley here and doctor Lewis shared
Speaker 1: in her update that new projects are rolling out in
Speaker 1: North America and elsewhere where community science can help gather
Speaker 1: really valuable data on species distributions. One of those places
Speaker 1: is fireflyatlist dot org and that was launched in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty two, is right after this episode aired, and we'll
Speaker 1: link it on our website and firefly atlist dot org.
Speaker 1: It's a big collaborative effort. And Sarah tells me that
Speaker 1: firefly experts and doctor sparkle butts need more information on
Speaker 1: species distributions and habitat associations and threats so that they
Speaker 1: can make informed management and conservation decisions.
Speaker 2: And firefly atlst.
Speaker 1: Dot org has a map of North America and if
Speaker 1: your region is highlighted, you can click on it to
Speaker 1: learn which firefly species are searching for and how you
Speaker 1: can help them. Now, how are the fireflies doing? Doctor
Speaker 1: Lewis let me know that after this episode initially aired,
Speaker 1: there was an international effort. It was published in the
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four study. It was titled Illuminating Firefly Diversity Trends,
Speaker 1: Threats and Conservation Strategies. It was in the journal Insects,
Speaker 1: and it outlines the main threats linked to the recent
Speaker 1: population declines and they are habitat loss and degradation, light pollution, pesticide, overuse,
Speaker 1: climate change, and tourism. And although this big global coordination
Speaker 1: of conservation has begun only recently, considerable progress has already made,
Speaker 1: she told me. So that's a good news. And Sarah
Speaker 1: also said that here in the good old USA, we
Speaker 1: successfully petitioned the Fish and Wildlife Service to add this
Speaker 1: critically endangered Bethany Beach firefly. It's a species that lives
Speaker 1: in a tiny stretch of Delaware to the endangered Species list,
Speaker 1: and they're working to get legal protection for other at
Speaker 1: risk fireflies and their habitats.
Speaker 2: So they're working on it.
Speaker 1: And firefly scientists have also gathered enough data to do
Speaker 1: official IUCN Red List assessments for around one hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty species from all over from the US, Canada, Europe,
Speaker 1: Hong Kong, Southeast Asia and doctor Lewis added that while
Speaker 1: this is just a fraction of global firefly diversity, the
Speaker 1: bad news is that about twenty percent of species assessed
Speaker 1: to date face heightened extinction risks. Now, in terms of
Speaker 1: spreading the concern and appreciating fireflies, how can you capture
Speaker 1: them but not physically? Oh and what about photography? Any
Speaker 1: hints on capturing good firefly photos?
Speaker 3: Yes? So I would like to say that personally, I
Speaker 3: am in awe of the many, many firefly photographers out
Speaker 3: there who capture these beautiful long exposure images of fireflies.
Speaker 3: And in these images you can often see the flash
Speaker 3: pattern of the firefly. You can almost identify what species
Speaker 3: of firefly it is from the photograph. But I have
Speaker 3: no idea how they do that.
Speaker 1: It's okay, I locked up some tips for us. So basically,
Speaker 1: get a tripod, slow down the shutter speed, open your
Speaker 1: lens up wide, and crank up your camera's sensitivity to
Speaker 1: light or it's ISO. And if you don't have a
Speaker 1: fancy camera that is also not a phone, then there
Speaker 1: are apps like PROCM eight that have presets like low
Speaker 1: light and light trails. And you can also do a
Speaker 1: slow shutter mode which stacks a bunch of images on
Speaker 1: top of each other to create a longer exposure effect.
Speaker 1: But patience and experimentation, maybe a late night energy drink
Speaker 1: I'll help, or you know what, just leave it.
Speaker 2: To the pros.
Speaker 3: Actually, I'll just put a shout out here to one
Speaker 3: of the firefly photographers we've worked with very closely on
Speaker 3: our conservation efforts has a websit. It's called Firefly Experience.
Speaker 3: His name is Redeem Schreiber, and he takes pictures of
Speaker 3: fireflies using just their natural light, never any flash, never
Speaker 3: any extraneous light. And his photographs are really they're amazing
Speaker 3: and they really capture the personality of each of the
Speaker 3: different kinds of fireflies. So I highly recommend Firefly Experience.
Speaker 1: Cool. Last listener question, Sarah Hoover, Cameron Brown, and R. J.
Speaker 1: Deroage all asked if you have thoughts on the song
Speaker 1: Fireflies by Al City if it ever gets stuck in
Speaker 1: your head? Have you heard of that that's so funny?
Speaker 3: Yes, I don't really like that song because you know,
Speaker 3: I don't know the ten thousand hug stuff because I
Speaker 3: get a thousand hugs from ten thousand lightnings. Yeah, it's
Speaker 3: not my favorite firefly song. You know, there's a really
Speaker 3: cool there's a glow worm song that was popular, I
Speaker 3: guess in the nineteen fifties. My mother used to sing
Speaker 3: it to me when I was little. Hey, maybe that's
Speaker 3: why I study firefly Anyways, Mill's brother gloworm song. I
Speaker 3: like that one a whole lot better.
Speaker 5: This night used a little brightening, light up you little
Speaker 5: about the lightning. When you gotta glue, you gotta clue
Speaker 5: blue little blow.
Speaker 1: Did we just discover why Sarah Lewis is a firefly scientist?
Speaker 2: Did that just happen?
Speaker 1: I don't know. I guess either way. Singing to your
Speaker 1: loved ones, ask smart people weird but well intentioned questions,
Speaker 1: because you never know what's underneath the rocks.
Speaker 2: On the topic of.
Speaker 1: Last questions, I always ask everyone your least favorite thing
Speaker 1: about being a sparkle batologist or least favorite thing about fireflies?
Speaker 1: Is there anything that's just an annoyance or you wish
Speaker 1: was different?
Speaker 3: Absolutely, And it's undoubtedly miss mosquitoes. So there's a really
Speaker 3: high correlation between you know, fireflies like places where there's
Speaker 3: a lot of moisture, and so to mosquitoes and it's
Speaker 3: nighttime and so yeah, I think the hardest thing for
Speaker 3: a lot of my students and for myself, working on
Speaker 3: fireflies is just like not necessarily like the mosquitoes are
Speaker 3: going to bite you, because usually you're covered up completely
Speaker 3: long sleeves. Sometimes we wear rubber gloves and we have
Speaker 3: like mosquito gear on, anti mosquito gear on. But it's
Speaker 3: a sound of the mosquitoes that little you know, that wine,
Speaker 3: and it just like sometimes I would go to sleep
Speaker 3: finally after a really long night and I'd still like
Speaker 3: in my dreams, I would hear that whine of the
Speaker 3: mosquitoes just like buzzing around my head. And yeah, that
Speaker 3: was really kind of traumatic for a couple of years
Speaker 3: in there.
Speaker 1: And lastly difficult to answer. But your favorite thing about
Speaker 1: fireflies or being a firefly scientist?
Speaker 3: Wow? Yeah, so this is easy because you know the
Speaker 3: thing that I really really appreciate. I just feel so
Speaker 3: fortunate to be able to like have devoted so much
Speaker 3: of my scientific career to studying such a wondrous animal
Speaker 3: like you. Just like every single season, you know, I do,
Speaker 3: you know, my science and like write all the notes
Speaker 3: and take all the measurements and stuff, But every single
Speaker 3: season I always spend at least one night that I
Speaker 3: just dedicate to wonder. I don't. I just like put
Speaker 3: everything else out of my mind and I just go
Speaker 3: out and gawk at the fireflies and just drinking the wonder.
Speaker 3: And man, it's a really incredible thing. And it's not
Speaker 3: just you know that the they don't just bring that
Speaker 3: wonder to me, but to everybody who sees them. So
Speaker 3: you know, they are some of the best ambassadors for
Speaker 3: Earth's natural magic. And so man, I feel so lucky
Speaker 3: to be, like, you know, representing them to and telling
Speaker 3: people about them and learning more about them. It's just
Speaker 3: like I just feel like super super super grateful to
Speaker 3: the fireflies, lucky to have found this niche.
Speaker 1: Well they I think they're lucky to have a spokesperson
Speaker 1: as a knowledgeable and enthusiastic as you.
Speaker 3: For sure, very kind, Thank you, Thank you.
Speaker 1: So much for doing this. This is just a joy.
Speaker 3: I love this. It's been really really fun. Thank you
Speaker 3: so much for inviting me.
Speaker 1: So yes, get Sarah Lewis's book, Silent Spark. It's linked
Speaker 1: in the show notes below. Just a social media update,
Speaker 1: Doctor Lewis, like millions of us, is no longer on
Speaker 1: X but she is on threads at Silent Sparks, and
Speaker 1: she says that those curious about fireflies could join or
Speaker 1: follow her on Facebook in a firefly group there, so
Speaker 1: we will link that also on the show show notes.
Speaker 1: And she also shared that later this summer, fireflyers from
Speaker 1: all over the planet will be gathering in Mexico to
Speaker 1: attend the International Firefly Symposium, where they're going to report
Speaker 1: on new discoveries about firefly ecology and behavior and exchange
Speaker 1: ideas and methods and share their most effective conservation strategies.
Speaker 1: So ugh to be a firefly on the wall there
Speaker 1: you would make so many new friends. And doctor Lewis
Speaker 1: also said to the Ologies community, thanks again for helping
Speaker 1: to keep the firefly magic alive, and we will link
Speaker 1: doctor Lewis's website in the show notes, and also in
Speaker 1: the show notes is a link to our website which
Speaker 1: will point you toward all the resources and studies and
Speaker 1: maps and pictures that we talked about in this episode.
Speaker 1: We are at Ologies on Blue Sky and Instagram. I'm
Speaker 1: at Ali Ward with one L on both. Thank you
Speaker 1: Aaron Talbert for admitting the Ologies podcast Facebook group and
Speaker 1: for being my friend for decades. Thank you Noel Dilworth
Speaker 1: for schedule, producing Ologies, Susan Hale managing directs everything from
Speaker 1: the tiny Stuff to the Giant Stuff. Steve Ray Morris
Speaker 1: and Jared Sleeper of mind Jam Media where the editors
Speaker 1: for this episode and when it initially came out. I
Speaker 1: had been married to Jared Sleeper for about a week,
Speaker 1: so we're now about on our fourth anniversary. Things are
Speaker 1: still going great and folding in all the updates for
Speaker 1: this was Mercedes Maitland of Maitland Audio, who the entire
Speaker 1: Ology staff threatens to move in with whenever she sends
Speaker 1: us pictures of all the cool bugs up in her
Speaker 1: Canadian yard. Mercedes, please fluff up the couch for me.
Speaker 1: We also now have Smologies episodes which are g rated
Speaker 1: and kid safe and they are in their own podcast
Speaker 1: feed wherever you get podcasts. They're great for kids and
Speaker 1: road trips, just look for Smologies. They're also linked in
Speaker 1: the show notes ologies merches at ologiesmerch dot com and
Speaker 1: showing our Patreon. You can find us at patroon dot
Speaker 1: com slash Ologies, where you could submit questions we may
Speaker 1: ask on the show. Nick Thorburn did the theme music
Speaker 1: and if you stick around until the end, I tell
Speaker 1: you a secret. And this one is a classic. It
Speaker 1: haunts me to this day. I'm glad I got it
Speaker 1: off my chest. If you stick around until the end
Speaker 1: of the episode, tell you a secret. And this week
Speaker 1: we did a lot of drivings through Montana, which in
Speaker 1: which gambling is legal in that state. And whenever I
Speaker 1: see a casino billboard that advertises loose slots, I always
Speaker 1: think of just terrible food poisoning, just like eating bad
Speaker 1: shrimp from the buffet at Heaven. Loose slots all weekend.
Speaker 1: Just chain to the jackpot if you will. Anyway, it's gross.
Speaker 1: I can't remember if I've told you that before, but
Speaker 1: now you know.
Speaker 2: Sorry, Bye bye.
Speaker 4: Pacodermatology, bombology or doo zoology, lithology, zechonology, meteorology, manology, menthology,
Speaker 4: ceiologyology
Speaker 3: Especially fireflies or butts light up.