What Can We Learn From Fireflies?

When I was growing up, they were something you read about in stories. I never actually saw them until the college summer I spent on the East Coast. Surprisingly, fireflies are found in every US State of the Lower 48. How come we never saw them on the West Coast?

Apparently, of the 170 firefly species in the US, the ones west of the Rockies flash their lights only on the ground and not while flying, so they’re very hard and rare to see. OK, but… so what? In an AP feature story this week it was mentioned how each species has a unique light pattern, for instance:

No surprise, like many creatures, fireflies are apparently disappearing.

Question to ask at your table: Should that bother us? And if so, why?

It turns out that they do more for us than entertain children. For example, they actually eat mosquitoes, slugs and snails (among other things).

Did you ever hear of a slug-eating fly?

Well, it turns out that fireflies are not actually flies – they’re beetles. And it also turns out that they’re very hard to study and we know very little about them.

“It’s kind of like we’ve taken fireflies for granted for many decades. Everybody just assumes that we know all about them and that we know all the species and that everybody loves them. You know, they’re bioluminescent, so that’s really cool. Kids love them. But it’s amazing how little we know about them.”
— Delaware State University environmental sciences professor Christopher Heckscher

Question for your table: Is there a moral to this story?

It seems to me that we like to believe that our leaders and experts “know what they’re doing.” Sometimes they do and when they do we’re lucky. But don’t ever put your faith in them.