Of Lightning Bugs and Fireflies

I have noticed that lightning bugs are out in force this year.  It seems that they practically light up my yard every night like nothing I have seen in some time.  USA Today has noticed the same thing.

According to USA Today, warm, wet years tend to bring out fireflies in Northeastern (and I assume, Midwestern) states.

I was not aware until recently that lighting bugs are seen only as far west as Kansas.  My son-in-law is from Idaho and he never had the pleasure of capturing the luminescent creatures in an old pickle jar when he was a youngster.

I was never really sure why lightning bugs light it up.  I should have known it had something to do with sex.

It's like Friday night at the singles bar out there," Branham says. "A lot of people might think firefly bioluminescence is just nature's fanciful nighttime entertainment, but there is a lot more going on there."

It's all about mating. Most of the fireflies, sometimes called glow worms, that fire up over your lawn are males, he says, signaling their availability to female fireflies. "They (females) only flash back when they see a male they find particularly attractive."

Once the lightning bug lovers have exchanged flashes, the male lands nearby and the fireflies mate. That is, unless the female belongs to the Photuris family, the "femme fatale" of fireflies, who can mimic the mating flash pattern of other species. That can cause the male to land next to the Photuris female — who eats him.

Cornell researchers showed in 1997 that not only do femme fatales acquire a meal this way from their poor dupes, but they also employ chemical defenses called lucibufagins, which taste nasty to birds, spiders and other predators.

If only life was this simple for us.  Let the guys put a light on and say "I'm here" and wait for the girls to show up.