These males sport a bluish-green lamp that they can leave on for a minute or more as they hover near the ground looking for a female. Look for them as far north as Pennsylvania and south to Tennessee.įor Phausis reticulata, which is the Blue Ghost’s less-spooky official title, the name of the game is low and slow. It then repeats the maneuver three seconds later. Faust calls this firefly the "Dot-dash." The "Marsh Diver," Pyractomena palustris, likes to light up for several milliseconds before diving into wetlands grass. That shape has also earned them the nickname "Big Dippers."Įlsewhere in firefly pageantry, Photuris pennsylvanica can be recognized across the Mid-Atlantic states from its quick, yellow-green flash followed by a longer pulse that lasts one to three seconds. Just look for the leisurely scrawled "J" shape their butts drag across the darkening sky. And while many closely related insect species can only be told apart by dissection and close-up examination of their genitalia, you can identify this one without ever laying hands on it. On warm summer evenings from mid-June to early July, the males of this species can be found floating about your backyard as dusk falls, usually about waist-high. Take Photinus pyralis, one of the largest and most recognizable fireflies in the eastern U.S. “It blows my mind how they evolved these things.” “Lightning bug flashes are works of art,” says Faust, a naturalist who recently penned the definitive book on the topic, Fireflies, Glow-worms, and Lightning Bugs, published by University of Georgia Press.
LIGHTNING BUG CODE
Some females are completely dark, while others offer flickers to let males know they’re on the market.įor the last 26 years, Lynn Faust has been working to catalog and decipher the bioluminescent Morse Code each species flickers out come spring and summer. Others light up to compete with rivals or after they’ve been rejected by a suitor. Some fireflies will flicker when threatened by a predator or caught in a spiderweb. They can appear as single blinks or long, glowing trails.
Lightning bug lamps can glow yellow, orange or, as is the case with the ghosts, even shades bordering on electric blue. But the truth is, there’s an astonishing amount of diversity among these bioluminescent beetles. Over 2,000 species of lightning bug sparkle and flicker on this Earth, with more than 125 species living in the United States. When most of us think of fireflies (or lightning bugs, as we call them in the North), we picture yellow and green-flashing orbs against a darkening summer sky. If you're deep in the Southern Appalachian Mountains around dusk and spy a hazy blue circle crawling across the ground, take note: you just might be in the presence of a ghost.
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