Lightning bugs!!

Bioluminescence is actual magic. I will take no calls on this matter.

We used to have so many of them when I was a kid. Their numbers are dwindling. 😭

It brings me unimaginable sadness to know that my recently born nephew will grow up in such a region, when just a few years ago you could see hundreds of these guys in any given back yard

Also, people are born every day, and some just go on with their lives never learning about random facts like these. Every day, someone is one of the lucky 10k.

I grew up calling them lightning bugs, and I'm so excited to see a thread full of people calling them the same!

You would not believe your eyes

coming from australia, this is super real… we have such a unique set of animals and plants that it’s all just so normal to us, but then you travel overseas and everything is like what you see on tv and in movies

i’m mid 30s, and last year i saw snow falling for the first time in chicago… snow falling is beautiful, and to most of the world it’s just normal - to australians, it just never happens

My mom grew up in an area of California with no fireflies. When she was a teenager, she went on a cross-country trip with a friend. In the mountains of North Carolina, they were driving along at night when some bugs hit the windshield of their car. They didn't think much of it... until the bug guts started glowing. Then they screamed.

I know a girl in south carolina who wasn't from there; she saw lightning bugs for the first time there one summer and she started crying. I find that story very touching- its a reminder not to be blind to the beauty of the world, even if that beauty is so common that it's unremarkable.

No fireflies where I live, but that doesn't mean my childhood was free of a beautiful insect swarm.

My area had a bad outbreak of cockchafers I got to enjoy.

I grew up in the American southwest and I saw them for the first time last summer. I probably looked crazy to people, a guy in his late 20s taking pictures and videos of bugs along the road to send to my family, but I was genuinely mystified

I thought I was seeing spots on the edge of my vision or something before I realized what they were. I always thought they were constantly emitting light, not twinkling

Is no one going to point out that it looks like Sauron's eye between the index and middle fingers?

these guys are great!

I was also blown away the first time I've seen bioluminescent bacteria on some strip algae...you would pass your finger by them and see the hidden binary encoded alien messages

Tried searching YouTube for "fireflies" to watch them in action. 99.9% of the results are music, podcasts and political channels using the term. Think I saw 2 videos of actual fireflies on the first page of results 😆

Firefly: a lightning bug

Lightning bug: a firefly

Fire bug: an arsonist

Lightning fly: ??? The electric eel of the dragonfly world?

"Is that bat glowing?"

That's no bat. Run!"

[Electrical crackling sounds]

Growing up, they were indigenous where I lived. After I moved away, it was so surreal no not see random lights in the back yard during the summer nights.

I saw a few lightning bugs in my yard last year. My life goal have them consistently in my yard. Good thing this dovetails nicely with my other life goals of getting butterflies, bumblebees and birds in my yards

One of the cool things about living in Ohio for a couple years, didn't exist in Texas where I was raised.

Tumbler has one of the worst comment layouts...

I have never seen one and I am very jealous :(

Cocuyo is the name in Cuba 🥹

Are actually that bright? Where I live they are very dim and green.

Ghibli even made a movie about them

It's been more than 20 years since my wife moved to the west cost and she still laments the lack of fireflies. Where-as, whenever I've been out east, I'm caught off guard by them... then I start singing Roxanne.

You don't have to put on the gold light