It's time to go share a Dairy Queen treat and watch the
lightning bugs rise and light up the dark and listen to the resident crickets offer up one of their final evening serenades for the season.
They'd seen
lightning bugs before--maybe even hundreds of times.
What Mark Twain once famously observed about the nuances of communication could also be said about the fragility of relationship: "The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the differenc between lightning and a
lightning bug."
Lightning bugs synchronize their flashes during these few weeks of the year as part of their mating efforts.
I miss the
lightning bugs of my Midwest youth, but not the humidity they favor.
In a book that's sure to rekindle a reader's childhood fascination with fireflies, a biologist shares the secrets of these beetles' glow and explains the utility of
lightning bugs to industry (SN: 6/25/16, p.
Excessive night light also has been linked to the decline of
lightning bugs, the death of migrating birds and the fatal disorientation of newly hatched turtles.
(1.) The best source for this effort in the open literature is William Wagner,
Lightning Bugs and Other Reconnaissance Drones (Fallbrook Calif.
& tiny
lightning bugs; clear, numbered constellations.
Visitors to the "GLOW Living Lights" science exhibit enter a dark and mysterious gallery to explore nature's bio-luminescence and discover the variety of creatures that 'Glow', including Fireflies AKA
Lightning Bugs.
Lightning bugs, I remember reading somewhere, are the last metamorphosis of glowworms.
The same thing can be said for
lightning bugs, which used to be first seen in late June.