Synchronous fireflies

[John K Jordan]

The synchronous fireflies are at it again in the woods and even in the yard near the house. I've been watching them at the farm here and at our previous house for at least 25 years now. The first few nights I see them there are not many and they are not quite synchronized but in just a few days they are everywhere and synchronized nicely. They stay fairly low at first, about shoulder height or lower, but later tend to move higher in the trees. Their flash is a series of very short blinks unlike normal fireflies whose blink is slow enough to see a trail when they move.

It's fascinating to see 50 fireflies all blinking in perfect unison. Every once in a while a rogue flies in from another area out of sync but he quickly gets with the local program.

It's humorous to hear of people paying for a lottery ticket, paying driving hours, paying a big parking fee, then waiting for their turn to be shuttled to a viewing area in the Great Smoky Mountains. When I was working a woman told of her viewing adventure in the Smokys then got visibly upset when I told her I watch them in our woods every year. Not too many years ago insect scientists declared they were only found in first one, then two areas in the country. I wrote to some researchers and told them about ours but never heard back.

Once I collected a bunch with a net and put them in our screen-in porch. They didn't blink once!

JKJ

[Jim Koepke]

That makes me envious. My fond memories of being about 25 miles east of Memphis and enjoying the delight of watching fireflies are now being recalled. Wish we had them here.

jtk

[Bradley Gray]

We actually have a population here in Southern Ohio. My wife discovered them about 5 years ago. Lynn Faust from Knoxville (author, "Fireflies, Glow-worms and Lightning Bugs) visited and caught samples for DNA testing and determined they were the same as the ones in TN.

Lynn also worked on a film about fireflies with Sir David Attenborough and the BBC.

Most years they have started on the same date as the one's in GSMs - this year a week later.

Lynn's book is available from the Univ. of Georgia Press - recommended! http://www.ugapress.org

[roger wiegand]

Ours are independent minded. No synchronous flashing, but they sure are pretty anyway. We had some the other night that were doing rapid strobing as they rose, I hadn't seen that before.

[Curt Harms]

We had fireflies the first couple years we lived at our current residence. It was a green field development. We haven't seen many the last 10+ years, I wonder if the oh-so-perfect lawns and the pesticides needed to keep them looking oh-so-perfect have something to do with that.

[John K Jordan]

We actually have a population here in Southern Ohio. My wife discovered them about 5 years ago. Lynn Faust from Knoxville (author, "Fireflies, Glow-worms and Lightning Bugs) visited and caught samples for DNA testing and determined they were the same as the ones in TN. ...

From the descriptions I've read, those we see might not be the same as those in the mountains, but I've never seen them. Perhaps I'll contact Lynn. Thanks for the book idea - I just ordered one from Amazon.

Funny, when you said Lynn Faust in Knoxville I did a double-take - I thought I knew her, but the woman I know has a different spelling on her last name. I could imaging this Lynn being interested in any kind of bugs.

JKJ

[Peter Mich]

They put on quite a show each evening outside my bedroom window. I have many memories from my younger days catching them and watching close up. Thanks for sharing information about the book. I just ordered a copy.

[Bradley Gray]

I didn't realize, until we made contact with Lynn and got her book, there are about 30 different kinds of fireflies.

The one's we caught in our youth in Ohio are "j-strokes". We are also seeing "treetop flashers", "chinese lanterns" and some fast flying predators that appear along with the sychronous ones.

[Stan Calow]

I think twice about applying lawn pesticides because I miss the large clouds of fireflies of my youth.

[Dave Lehnert]

https://www.firefly.org/why-are-fire...appearing.html

[John K Jordan]

I think twice about applying lawn pesticides because I miss the large clouds of fireflies of my youth.

That's a wonderful and environmentally responsible policy! I read research showing many people casually and habitually apply pesticides to lawns to kill possibly undetermined and even undetected insects. Insectphobia?

The problem is many insects are good and helpful. Even ants aerate the soil and clean up debris. Now I do target and eliminate fire ant mounds! And I put out a guard boundary to keep them outside the house.

The recommendation is to never apply pesticide unless it targets a specific problem. Much worse than spreading on lawns is putting pesticide such as powdered Sevin on plants such as green beans while they are flowering - the honeybees pick it up like pollen and carry it back to the hive and sometimes the entire colony dies. The rate of loss of the worlds insects is alarming. There goes our food supply...

[Lee Schierer]

We used to have tons of fireflies, now we just get a few in the area. One year there were so many it looked like a truck load of twinkle lights had been strung across the field behind our house. Not much pesticide in use, but the grass field has reverted to mostly brush and trees. Ours seem to blink with their own non-synchronous pattern.

[Curt Harms]

I know skunks are not very popular here but they do have at least one beneficial trait. They find Japanese Beetle larvae absolutely scrumptious. We used to have Japanese Beetles. One morning I went out and found several areas where the ground had been dug up and had no idea who or what was responsible. One moon lit night we saw the responsible parties. No more Japanese Beetles.

[Mark Rainey]

Synchronous fireflies must be beautiful to view! I lived in Lancaster Pennsylvania for 10 years and our children loved our backyard full of fireflies at night.

[John K Jordan]

Synchronous fireflies must be beautiful to view! I lived in Lancaster Pennsylvania for 10 years and our children loved our backyard full of fireflies at night.

They are amazing to experience. They are not nearly as bright as the longer slow blinkers but to stand in the woods and see dozens all around and as far as you can see through the trees all blinking at the exact moment is mesmerizing. Last night I even watched some from my bedroom window. Tonight I think I'll take an extended walk to different areas where I usually don't go and see how extensive they are here. I wonder how they would look through night-vision binoculars - I'll try that too.

An article I read yesterday said that too many lights are a problem and can confuse them, especially moving lights. Could even reduce their numbers in the long run.