Now that it is hot out, the fireflies have emerged and there is nothing quite like sitting on a porch trying to guess where one might pop up next. It's one of my favorite things about summer.
But even after being out in the Midwest for 5 years, they still seem mysterious to me. I don't actually know tons about these little critters, but I discovered this fun firefly website called http://www.firefly.org/ and learned some new things about fireflies. The most fun facts are:
- Fireflies produce "cold light" which I guess means that no heat is emitted when they light up. This means they emit 100% of light. (as far as I know no man made light can do that)
- You should never feed fireflies to reptiles (I guess they can poison them).
- And fireflies are disappearing around the world. Never would have thought that if you look outside our window.
One of these day's I'll get brave enough to try and catch one. But that might be a while. As pretty as they are, they still kind of creep me out.
We caught them in glass jars during our West Virginia visits. Grandma gave us canning jars she had poked many holes in the tops. We always thought they could be our night light. HMMM they were dead by morning and smelled. ;-}
ReplyDeleteHowever we had LOTS of fun catching them!!
Mom K