Bioluminescence, the ability of living organisms to emit light, is a fascinating phenomenon observed in various life forms, including deep-sea fish, glowing mushrooms, and fireflies. Fireflies have long captivated people ...
Evolution
19 hours ago
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Fireflies rely on flashing signals to communicate to other fireflies using light-emitting lanterns on their abdomens. In fireflies of the species Abscondita terminalis, males make multi-pulse flashes with two lanterns to ...
Plants & Animals
Aug 19, 2024
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On a muggy July evening, Delaware state biologist Jason Davis is doing what kids have done for ages: Trying to catch a firefly. It's nowhere near as easy as the summer evenings of his own childhood, with only a few in this ...
Ecology
Jul 24, 2024
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For many who grew up east of the Mississippi River, yellow twinkling lights punctuate magical childhood memories. New England natives call them fireflies, but they're known as lightning bugs from the Midwest to the South. ...
Plants & Animals
Jul 15, 2024
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Owen Martin steps carefully through the knee-high grass growing up around a long-abandoned railroad track near Sawhill Ponds in Boulder, Colorado. It's almost pitch black out. The sun set 45 minutes ago, and the only light ...
Plants & Animals
Jul 12, 2024
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They glow like fading stars and have made memories of shimmering summertime backyards for generations.
Plants & Animals
Jul 8, 2024
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The leading hypothesis for the origin of firefly lights has been overturned by a genomic analysis. It had been posited that the bright lights emitted by many species in the Lampyridae family of beetles—better known as fireflies—first ...
Evolution
Jun 25, 2024
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1
Proba-3 is ESA's—and the world's—first precision formation flying mission. A pair of satellites will fly together relative to the sun so that one casts a precisely-controlled shadow onto the other, to create a prolonged ...
Space Exploration
Jun 12, 2024
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23
A study conducted by the University of Kentucky Martin-Gatton College of Agriculture, Food and Environment; Bucknell University; Penn State University; and the USDA has shed light on the precarious situation facing firefly ...
Plants & Animals
Apr 29, 2024
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122
Two bio-researchers, one with Huazhong Agricultural University, the other the Firefly Conservation Research Center, both in China, have identified the key transcription factors that regulate the development of light organs ...
Lampyridae is a family of insects in the beetle order Coleoptera. They are winged beetles, and commonly called fireflies or lightning bugs for their conspicuous crepuscular use of bioluminescence to attract mates or prey. Fireflies produce a "cold light", with no infrared or ultraviolet frequencies. This chemically-produced light from the lower abdomen may be yellow, green, or pale-red, with wavelengths from 510 to 670 nanometers.
About 2,000 species of firefly are found in temperate and tropical environments. Many are in marshes or in wet, wooded areas where their larvae have abundant sources of food. These larvae emit light and are often called "glowworms", in particular, in Eurasia. In the Americas, "glow worm" also refers to the related Phengodidae. In many species, both male and female fireflies have the ability to fly, but in some species, females are flightless.
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