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How Fireflies and Lightning Bugs Work · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I
0:04
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh
0:13
Speaker 1: Clark and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant over there, and
0:16
Speaker 1: it's just the two of us, and we are here
0:19
Speaker 1: today to present a Stuff you Should Know about fireflies
0:24
Speaker 1: and lightning bugs, which are pretty much fun in the state.
0:28
Speaker 1: I assume you're a firefly guy, right, I'm both evascillate.
0:33
Speaker 1: I'm an I'm a vascillator. Really, I'll say it again, i'vacillate. Uh,
0:41
Speaker 1: that's weird. I don't I don't know many people that
0:43
Speaker 1: kind of interchange these. Well, I grew up in Toledo,
0:48
Speaker 1: and I think that's where I picked up lightning bug.
0:50
Speaker 1: And then down here in the South it's firefly. Right,
0:55
Speaker 1: you got a backwards son. Well, then I picked up
0:57
Speaker 1: firefly as a kid in lightning bug in the South.
1:00
Speaker 1: That's it. Then, Yeah, it's it's I mean, I'm obviously
1:05
Speaker 1: born and raised here forever. I just can't imagine saying fireflies.
1:09
Speaker 1: It's just seems very strange to me. Yeah, it makes
1:11
Speaker 1: you think of like um arsonists. No, it makes me
1:16
Speaker 1: think of brown Coats and the TV show Okay, sure
1:20
Speaker 1: that was a good TV show. Yeah, I mean that's
1:22
Speaker 1: a good thing to think about for sure. But yeah,
1:27
Speaker 1: that's the deal. Apparently in the South it's lightning bugs generally.
1:31
Speaker 1: I think firefly out west and northeast, and then midwest
1:37
Speaker 1: and south is lightning bug generally. Yeah, generally. I mean
1:41
Speaker 1: there's pockets here there of weirdos who call them other
1:43
Speaker 1: things like jack and stuff like that, but most people
1:49
Speaker 1: see fireflies and lightning bugs is like a synonymous and interchangeable.
1:53
Speaker 1: But apparently there's a group of firefly researchers that that differentiate. Um,
1:59
Speaker 1: we're they use fireflies is like the umbrella term for
2:02
Speaker 1: a few other categories. Right. Uh, there's the glow worm,
2:09
Speaker 1: of which the ladies don't have wings and they have
2:12
Speaker 1: a steady glow. They're they're big in the UK, huge
2:17
Speaker 1: like big in size or just popular popular popular is
2:22
Speaker 1: basically what I mean. They're like three ft long. Yeah. Uh.
2:27
Speaker 1: And then you've got your daytime dark fireflies, which this
2:30
Speaker 1: just get this out of here if you ask me, Yeah,
2:34
Speaker 1: they don't even have light. So I even throw the
2:36
Speaker 1: word firefly in there. They ruin it for everybody else.
2:39
Speaker 1: That's the problem with using genetics for taxonomy, you know, right. Uh,
2:44
Speaker 1: and then you've got your your flashing firefly, and that's
2:47
Speaker 1: what we're kind of talking about here, which is the
2:49
Speaker 1: lightning bug. Yeah, that's where it's interchangeable, the flash, flashing firefly,
2:52
Speaker 1: lightning bug, one and the same. And we're not going
2:55
Speaker 1: to be pedantic from this point on. But I felt
2:57
Speaker 1: like that was worth pointing out. You know, no, I agree, Well,
3:01
Speaker 1: we're going to be a little pedantic. Yeah, I guess
3:03
Speaker 1: you're right. I forgot because fireflies aren't flies. Lightning bugs
3:08
Speaker 1: aren't bugs. And this is there's quite a few little
3:11
Speaker 1: facts of the podcast that you can know. This is
3:14
Speaker 1: one of those, I think where people I don't know
3:17
Speaker 1: a lot about lightning bugs, so they can always delight
3:20
Speaker 1: their friends at their next backyard party by saying it.
3:22
Speaker 1: They're actually all beatles, that's right, And everybody would be like, what,
3:26
Speaker 1: Oh my god, you just won the party. Oh man,
3:31
Speaker 1: I haven't won a party in so long. It's been
3:32
Speaker 1: a while. I haven't been to a party, and so long,
3:34
Speaker 1: even long before the pan the pandemic, I stopped getting
3:37
Speaker 1: invited because you won too many parties. I guess I
3:41
Speaker 1: can't have it was like having some Moan Biles over
3:45
Speaker 1: for a gymnastics party. What. I don't get that one.
3:50
Speaker 1: The goat thing. I don't get the goat thing. She's
3:55
Speaker 1: the greatest of all time with the um, with the gymnastics.
3:58
Speaker 1: I'm saying I'm the greatest of all times with party
4:00
Speaker 1: winning with facts I was. I was. I have goats
4:03
Speaker 1: that live across the street and I literally just fed them,
4:05
Speaker 1: So my mind went to the animal. So I didn't
4:07
Speaker 1: get it. Yes, all all about Simone Bile. She's great.
4:10
Speaker 1: Take care of herself. I love it. Yeah, sure, um so, No,
4:16
Speaker 1: I'm sorry that sounded like I was ambivalent. I agree
4:20
Speaker 1: with you. I think it is because that she took
4:21
Speaker 1: care of herself. I agree to Well you said the first.
4:25
Speaker 1: Obviously you agree with yourself. Should we cut all that out? No,
4:31
Speaker 1: I think that's stuffy. Should know gold. We haven't had
4:35
Speaker 1: some weirdo exchange. Yeah, for a while. It's been a while,
4:39
Speaker 1: all right, Can we get back to lightning bugs? For
4:41
Speaker 1: the love of god? Uh, they're class Oh boy, here
4:45
Speaker 1: we go. I'm gonna say the order. Uh, Cooter, I
4:51
Speaker 1: think you just nailed it. You just won the pronunciation party.
4:54
Speaker 1: What you want to try the family. I've been trying
4:57
Speaker 1: to figure this out. I think it's lampirate A. I
5:01
Speaker 1: think that's about right because piro like fire like the bright.
5:07
Speaker 1: It could also be lampyra Day. It's one of those two.
5:10
Speaker 1: That's what I'm staking my claimant. I'm gonna vacillate between
5:13
Speaker 1: Lampyriday and Lampyriday all right, but all together in this
5:18
Speaker 1: order and family there are here in the North American continent.
5:23
Speaker 1: They're more than a hundred and seventy species and more
5:25
Speaker 1: than two thousand worldwide. And they're always discovering more specie.
5:30
Speaker 1: Not always, but they're still discovering Like every day. Uh,
5:34
Speaker 1: they're discovering more species, so that list grows and grows. Yeah,
5:38
Speaker 1: which is pretty cool, um, especially considering that they are
5:42
Speaker 1: dropping like flies as far as anecdotal evidence is concerned,
5:46
Speaker 1: including anecdotal evidence from me. Yeah, me too, which we'll
5:50
Speaker 1: get to very disappointing. So um, the thing about fireflies,
5:54
Speaker 1: since they're a beetle family, most of them are all
5:56
Speaker 1: winged beetles. Almost all of them are that, like you said,
5:59
Speaker 1: some like low worms are typically include females that don't
6:02
Speaker 1: have wings, but for the most part, they have wings,
6:05
Speaker 1: they fly around, and like winged beetles, they have certain
6:08
Speaker 1: parts um in particular the electria eletra eltra, I would
6:16
Speaker 1: say eletra or electra. Okay, And that is very cool
6:19
Speaker 1: little closure that like they're like bay doors that open
6:24
Speaker 1: and close on the back of the of the firefly
6:28
Speaker 1: to allow the wings to spread out to take flight.
6:31
Speaker 1: It's really neat. It's like a DeLorean. Yeah, it is
6:34
Speaker 1: a lot or like a like the test last uv
6:39
Speaker 1: Oh did they open like that? That's so showy. It's
6:42
Speaker 1: pretty cool, though, Man, what is it about those doors?
6:45
Speaker 1: I don't know, Yeah, I know. I also love the
6:48
Speaker 1: old Lamborghini ones would slide open ever since I was
6:51
Speaker 1: eight something about doors like that or just just tickle me. Uh.
6:57
Speaker 1: And they yes, those those encase the wing and protect them.
7:01
Speaker 1: And then they also have an encased head. It's called pronotum,
7:05
Speaker 1: and that's the covering over basically the entire head. So
7:09
Speaker 1: if you're looking on from a bird's eye view, you're
7:13
Speaker 1: just gonna see no, you're gonna see any face. Yeah,
7:16
Speaker 1: it's just like a like a protect covering. It's like
7:20
Speaker 1: you know, Jerry only from the Misfits. It's like that
7:22
Speaker 1: get up that he wears that covers the back of
7:25
Speaker 1: his neck and head. I don't think I've seen that. Yeah,
7:28
Speaker 1: and it has spikes, and I can tell you that
7:30
Speaker 1: you meet has been impaled briefly on one of those
7:34
Speaker 1: spikes that show that Doyle Wolfgang von Frankenstein invited us
7:40
Speaker 1: to Madison Square Cards. Yes, but it definitely caught our
7:43
Speaker 1: attention because those things are not for show man. The
7:46
Speaker 1: spikes are very pointy and their metal. Yes, okay, I
7:51
Speaker 1: didn't if it's like Guar and it's all like phone. No,
7:54
Speaker 1: it's it's like Guar was apparently doing like a model
7:57
Speaker 1: of what Jerry Only was wearing all these years. Yeah,
8:00
Speaker 1: all right, how big are these things? What did we
8:03
Speaker 1: settle on? I know you send an update because is
8:07
Speaker 1: that just because it was incorrect? Because seven sixteenths of
8:10
Speaker 1: an inch it makes no sense to anyone. Well, it
8:13
Speaker 1: said that they range in size from like seven sixteenths
8:15
Speaker 1: of an inch to nine sixteenths of an inch. I
8:17
Speaker 1: think that's specifically like the big Dipper firefly. Fireflies in
8:21
Speaker 1: general typically range from about a fifth of an inch
8:25
Speaker 1: to an inch, typically like five to twenty five millimeters,
8:29
Speaker 1: starting in about the size of a grain of rice,
8:31
Speaker 1: all the way up to an inch. But there's some
8:33
Speaker 1: that are like way bigger than that. Yeah, I mean
8:37
Speaker 1: they can be. There are some that can be as
8:38
Speaker 1: big as the palm of your hand. But um, you know,
8:41
Speaker 1: here in the United States is good old American ones.
8:44
Speaker 1: You know how big they are. They're about as big
8:45
Speaker 1: as a you know, as big as a fingernail, that's right.
8:48
Speaker 1: And when they fly around, they go do do do
8:49
Speaker 1: do do do do do do do do do dude,
8:53
Speaker 1: do do do do do do do. I'm gonna squirt
8:57
Speaker 1: some light on you and you and speaking of them,
8:59
Speaker 1: score lights. Just last thing about their body, the organ,
9:03
Speaker 1: the light organ in their abdomen or tail is called
9:05
Speaker 1: the lantern, which I think is love that. Yeah. So
9:08
Speaker 1: where do you find besides backyards in the suburbs, where
9:12
Speaker 1: do you find fireflies? Charles? Well, you can find them
9:16
Speaker 1: on any continent except, of course, Antarctica. I feel like
9:19
Speaker 1: we say that a lot, poor Antarctica. Um, they are
9:23
Speaker 1: going to be in tropical regions, temperate zones. You're gonna
9:27
Speaker 1: see them. Uh, it depends on what stage they're in.
9:30
Speaker 1: The stage that we all love, the adult stage. It's
9:33
Speaker 1: only a couple of weeks long when they're flying around
9:35
Speaker 1: and lightening up their bellies. Um. But mainly and we'll
9:38
Speaker 1: get to their life cycle. They spend most of their
9:40
Speaker 1: time as larva on the ground in on the forest floor,
9:45
Speaker 1: kind of near water, usually the larval stage. They look
9:50
Speaker 1: like little almost like little dinosaur caterpillars. They're really interesting
9:54
Speaker 1: looking and they look nothing like you would think if
9:57
Speaker 1: you're used to seeing like these fireflies fly around. Yeah, especially,
10:00
Speaker 1: I mean fireflies just seem so like mild mannered and
10:04
Speaker 1: almost kind of dopey to some extent when they're flying around.
10:07
Speaker 1: So now when they're in the rival stages, we'll see
10:09
Speaker 1: there holy terrors basically. But you know, they have like
10:14
Speaker 1: all sorts of different habitats. You can find them up
10:16
Speaker 1: in the southern provinces of Canada. You can find them
10:19
Speaker 1: in some arid areas as long as there is permanent water,
10:24
Speaker 1: you could conceivably have um firefly populations and even like
10:29
Speaker 1: just you know, perpetually moist areas too. It doesn't have
10:33
Speaker 1: to be like a pond or something, but moist, like
10:36
Speaker 1: real moist areas. Yeah, and you're gonna see them in
10:41
Speaker 1: the humid summer evenings generally. Uh, in the south, it
10:47
Speaker 1: can be hot all year long, so you can see
10:48
Speaker 1: them some in the fall as well. And uh some
10:52
Speaker 1: though like their outliers, Like you said, some of them
10:55
Speaker 1: are really super aquatic, and some of them like never
10:58
Speaker 1: come down from their trees. Uh. And these are the
11:01
Speaker 1: ones you know, of the two thousand species all over
11:03
Speaker 1: the world that we're talking about, right, And um, if
11:05
Speaker 1: you were looking for a firefly show, the best seasons
11:09
Speaker 1: that you're going to have firefly shows are after a
11:12
Speaker 1: warm wet spring, or even during a warm wet spring,
11:16
Speaker 1: and or after a mild winter because those larvae that
11:20
Speaker 1: live in those marty areas, Um, we'll have higher survival
11:24
Speaker 1: rates in a colder climate with a mild winter during
11:27
Speaker 1: the over wintering period. All right, I think that's a
11:31
Speaker 1: great set up. Sure, let's get Yeah, maybe we should
11:35
Speaker 1: take a break and reveal to everyone what the heck
11:39
Speaker 1: they're doing with those lanterns to begin with. Huh. I
11:41
Speaker 1: think so, all right, we'll be right back. Okay, Chuck,
12:08
Speaker 1: We're about to act as lucifer to all these people
12:11
Speaker 1: because we will be bringing light to understanding of how
12:15
Speaker 1: fireflies produce light using appropriately lucifer aise. Right, uh, and
12:22
Speaker 1: I guess we can go ahead. And since I promised
12:25
Speaker 1: a big reveal, they're doing all this to attract a mate.
12:27
Speaker 1: They're trying to get down in boogie with another lightning bug.
12:30
Speaker 1: That's why they're lighting up like that. Oh yeah, I'm sorry,
12:33
Speaker 1: I forgot about the reveal and the one and a
12:35
Speaker 1: half seconds between between your your cliffhanger and coming back. Yeah.
12:42
Speaker 1: I wonder if people think if we leave for a
12:44
Speaker 1: hundred twenty seconds, right and just go, you know, take
12:47
Speaker 1: a stretch or whatever, and we just sit there in
12:49
Speaker 1: silence for here, you won't let us talk. Um. So, yeah,
12:56
Speaker 1: they're lighting up to attract a mate. And what they're
12:58
Speaker 1: doing here, they have these specialized cells in their abdomen
13:02
Speaker 1: to make that lantern light up. And it contains, like
13:05
Speaker 1: you said, that chemical called lucifer in and it makes
13:09
Speaker 1: an enzyme called lucifer aise. If if you don't want
13:13
Speaker 1: to sound devilish about it, that would be a fine pronunciation.
13:16
Speaker 1: I like lucifer in and lucifer aise, But they need
13:21
Speaker 1: something else to write. They need oxygen to make that
13:23
Speaker 1: thing blaze. Yeah, that and a dinas scene triphosphate or
13:26
Speaker 1: a t P, which is that that chemically stored energy
13:31
Speaker 1: that's found in basically all cells of all life everywhere. Yeah,
13:35
Speaker 1: it's just kind of this ubiquitous thing that kind of
13:38
Speaker 1: makes it's what powers life. So when it all kind
13:41
Speaker 1: of combines where you have um oxygen and a t
13:45
Speaker 1: P and lucifer in and lucifer aise the enzyme that's
13:50
Speaker 1: produced by by luciferen um, this chemical reaction produces light.
13:57
Speaker 1: There's a couple of byproducts oxy lucifer in, an adena
14:01
Speaker 1: seen monophosphate, and then lights given off. And you would
14:05
Speaker 1: think like, okay, light and heat. Sure that's the chemical reaction,
14:08
Speaker 1: so it's going to produce some heat now, Absolutely not.
14:12
Speaker 1: Here's one of those facts of the podcast. In my opinion,
14:16
Speaker 1: they call the kind of light that fireflies produced, the
14:20
Speaker 1: kind of bioluminescence that fireflies produced um cold light because
14:25
Speaker 1: it is one efficient. No, none of that the energy
14:29
Speaker 1: released from that chemical reaction is lost to heat. It
14:32
Speaker 1: is all um. It just produces photons only. Yeah, and
14:37
Speaker 1: that's why children can let a lightning bug land on
14:41
Speaker 1: their finger and that little abdomen that lantern can light
14:43
Speaker 1: up on their finger and they don't go al and
14:46
Speaker 1: smash it. Yeah, try that with the sparkler. Don't do that.
14:50
Speaker 1: It doesn't work. The light is the actual light, and
14:55
Speaker 1: the wavelength is between five tin and six and seventy nanometers.
15:00
Speaker 1: It looks yellowish to me. It looks a little greenish.
15:04
Speaker 1: It's been described as reddish green, but it looks like
15:08
Speaker 1: a yellowish green to me. It depends on the I think, yeah, yeah,
15:12
Speaker 1: I think there's ones that even give off blue. Right. Yeah,
15:15
Speaker 1: there's some around Asheville called the blue ghost firefly, and
15:19
Speaker 1: from a distance they look blue, but up close, if
15:21
Speaker 1: you catch one and hold it in your hand, it, um,
15:24
Speaker 1: it's like a it's like a greenish thing. So it
15:26
Speaker 1: has something to do with the distance that makes it
15:28
Speaker 1: look blue. But I saw pictures of those things and
15:31
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, I want to go see those one day.
15:33
Speaker 1: Asheville is a nice weekend trip. Sure, it's beautiful up there.
15:38
Speaker 1: Do you guys ever go up there? No? No, even
15:43
Speaker 1: a couple of years ago. It's it's great. Go to
15:45
Speaker 1: the what's it called the Big House? Sure, the who's
15:48
Speaker 1: its name? I don't know why I'm blanking. Yeah, But
15:52
Speaker 1: there's also like the mountains around their need and like
15:55
Speaker 1: the town itself has a lot of great restaurants, it
15:59
Speaker 1: look one for vegan food, you could do a lot
16:01
Speaker 1: worse than all or craft beer, homemade chocolate. Just don't
16:06
Speaker 1: go to the Built Moorehouse during Christmas. Well, I just
16:13
Speaker 1: think it's better non Christmas. Like the Christmas is so
16:17
Speaker 1: done there that I feel like it obscures a lot
16:21
Speaker 1: of the beauty of their Builtmore House. And that kind
16:24
Speaker 1: of Christmas stuff that they put up is not my style.
16:27
Speaker 1: It's just it's just a lot. Is it like the
16:30
Speaker 1: Belk style of Christmas? Yeah, ribbons, Yeah, I'm with It's
16:36
Speaker 1: not my thing. And the Built Moore stands on its own,
16:38
Speaker 1: it doesn't need all that garbage. But that's just my opinion.
16:40
Speaker 1: Like I like my Christmas gaudy. Plus you don't get
16:44
Speaker 1: the gardens that you would. Uh, it's just me. We
16:48
Speaker 1: made the big mistake of going there in Christmas one time.
16:50
Speaker 1: Never happened again. It was the worst mistake, was the
16:53
Speaker 1: worst and once with my car. Here's another uh cool
16:59
Speaker 1: fat of the show I think is that the lightning
17:03
Speaker 1: bugs all have gout, or they could very well have
17:06
Speaker 1: gout because those cells that make that light are riddled
17:10
Speaker 1: with uric acid crystals, just like you have as a
17:14
Speaker 1: human with gout. But they do it because they are
17:16
Speaker 1: crystals to reflect that light away from their little abdomen. Yeah,
17:20
Speaker 1: it's just like the lenses they used in Robert Agger's masterpiece,
17:24
Speaker 1: The Lighthouse. Yeah, oh boy, what a movie. I just
17:29
Speaker 1: wanted to slide a reference in. Uh. And in order
17:33
Speaker 1: to get that oxygen, we've been saying it needs oxygen.
17:35
Speaker 1: You're probably calling, how in the world do they get it? Uh,
17:38
Speaker 1: It is not just gathered through the air. It actually
17:41
Speaker 1: goes through a tube in the abdomen called the abdominal trichea,
17:45
Speaker 1: which is very interesting. Yeah, they're not exactly sure if
17:48
Speaker 1: fireflies are able to turn the supply of oxygen on
17:53
Speaker 1: or off. It's almost like how you it would inject
17:56
Speaker 1: fuel into a combustion engine. They are injecting oxygen into
18:00
Speaker 1: their lucifhrase engine um and producing light with it. But
18:06
Speaker 1: they don't know if they can use nerves to turn
18:07
Speaker 1: it on and off, or if they're just you know,
18:10
Speaker 1: subject to the whims of oxygen availability. We just don't
18:14
Speaker 1: know at this point. We just don't. Uh. And now
18:17
Speaker 1: here's how I understand this next bit and you can
18:20
Speaker 1: correct me if I'm wrong. But they use UM, this
18:24
Speaker 1: chemical reaction that happens in fireflies to produce that bioluminescence. Uh,
18:28
Speaker 1: they can use that. You know, we said the a
18:30
Speaker 1: T P, like every animal on the planet has a TP,
18:34
Speaker 1: but if you're if you have cell damage, maybe you
18:36
Speaker 1: might not have as much, or if it's disease, you
18:39
Speaker 1: may not have enough. And do they actually use this
18:43
Speaker 1: bioluminescence to inject in the cells to see if they
18:46
Speaker 1: get that glowy reaction that they're looking for. Yeah, they
18:49
Speaker 1: use it for that to make sure that the cells
18:51
Speaker 1: have an expected amount of a TP, to locate cells
18:54
Speaker 1: that don't have enough a TP, because that would suggest
18:57
Speaker 1: there's some sort of problem going on there. And then
19:00
Speaker 1: UM also they figured out how to attach the lucifer
19:03
Speaker 1: in gene to other genes using I believe crisper um,
19:09
Speaker 1: which ties into our optogenetics episode UM, where they're using
19:13
Speaker 1: like the light that's produced by this bioluminous and to
19:16
Speaker 1: turn on and off nearby jeans, which is nuts. But
19:20
Speaker 1: the thing the thing I saw that UM that this
19:23
Speaker 1: luciphrase was used for most abundantly especially in the twentieth century,
19:29
Speaker 1: was to detect spoilage in like food like milk, because
19:33
Speaker 1: if you had bacteria growing in your milk, if you
19:37
Speaker 1: added luciphrase, the milk would start to glow because the
19:40
Speaker 1: lucifhrase would interact with the A T P in those
19:44
Speaker 1: bacterial cells, and you would know you needed to pour
19:47
Speaker 1: some bleach in with your milk. Right, Oh, don't ever
19:50
Speaker 1: do that. Don't ever drink glowing milk, and don't ever
19:53
Speaker 1: pour bleach and drink it in anything. But apparently we
19:56
Speaker 1: humans have like no problems ingesting and working with a
20:00
Speaker 1: phrase it doesn't do anything bad to our bodies as
20:02
Speaker 1: far as right now, which is pretty interesting. Alright, so
20:06
Speaker 1: now we I know everyone's like, this is all great
20:08
Speaker 1: chemical reactions and stuff, but I would really love to
20:10
Speaker 1: talk about the sexy stuff because anytime we talk about
20:13
Speaker 1: animals and insects, we always get to talk about sexy stuff,
20:16
Speaker 1: which is a lot of fun. It's basically our only outlet,
20:19
Speaker 1: it really is, except when we you know, blush our
20:23
Speaker 1: way through episodes on puberty and stuff, or see a
20:25
Speaker 1: good pair of goal wing doors open up on a car, right,
20:29
Speaker 1: and of course puberty isn't sexy stuff. I hope that
20:31
Speaker 1: didn't come across the right. I think that was a
20:34
Speaker 1: good safe Uh So when they're flashing, like we said,
20:39
Speaker 1: it is, um, it is a mating ritual, and it
20:41
Speaker 1: is usually the male flashing their light high above the
20:46
Speaker 1: sky or high above the yard in the sky to
20:49
Speaker 1: show off to females who are on the ground kind
20:52
Speaker 1: of sitting around having a glass of wine and they're
20:56
Speaker 1: watching the light show and they're like, what do you
20:58
Speaker 1: think of that one, marge, And they're like, well, he
21:01
Speaker 1: looks okay, so let me flash back. And they'll flash back,
21:04
Speaker 1: and then the mail will see that and they'll say, hey,
21:07
Speaker 1: she just swiped. I don't know if it's left or right,
21:10
Speaker 1: but in the correct direction. And uh, let me go
21:14
Speaker 1: down and see if we can have a little party
21:16
Speaker 1: for the next few hours. Yeah, because that's how long
21:18
Speaker 1: they couple, And by couple, I mean like have sex.
21:21
Speaker 1: They stick together for like an hour or multiple hours, chuck,
21:26
Speaker 1: which is pretty impressive. Agreed. Um, Yeah, an hour to
21:31
Speaker 1: three hours. That's that's great. Good for them, right, I'm
21:35
Speaker 1: really happy for them. Uh. Here's the cool thing too, though,
21:38
Speaker 1: is each species has its own little blinkie pattern because
21:41
Speaker 1: they want to mate with the appropriate match and so
21:45
Speaker 1: they're gonna send out their blinkie pattern. Um. In some
21:48
Speaker 1: places around the world they are synchronous. I think Southeast
21:52
Speaker 1: Asia has the only like really really truly synchronous lightning bugs,
21:57
Speaker 1: and that they all blink in unison, which really must
22:00
Speaker 1: be cool to see. Yeah, and I guess the messages
22:03
Speaker 1: like come and get it all. It was like kind
22:08
Speaker 1: of in a creepy Children of the Damned right tone.
22:14
Speaker 1: Other places, I think they can synchronize, but they don't
22:17
Speaker 1: become like completely synchronous as a unit, right, No. I
22:20
Speaker 1: mean they will like in little localized areas and for
22:23
Speaker 1: a few seconds only. And you've probably seen this and
22:26
Speaker 1: didn't necessarily recognize what you were looking at. But this
22:29
Speaker 1: is like when I thought about it, I was like
22:31
Speaker 1: I was having trouble understanding it from the written description,
22:34
Speaker 1: and I thought about it and thought about it. I
22:37
Speaker 1: sat down for a little while, thought about it some more,
22:40
Speaker 1: and finally like, yeah, of course, um, I mean that's
22:43
Speaker 1: just a given. And then I finally was like, Okay,
22:46
Speaker 1: I I think I got this, and I think I've
22:48
Speaker 1: seen this before. You'll just see a few fireflights to
22:51
Speaker 1: start to kind of like fall into a rhythm, and
22:53
Speaker 1: then they fall out of the rhythm after a few flashes.
22:56
Speaker 1: That's still considered synchronous. You give them a Yeah, they're
23:01
Speaker 1: trying their best. They haven't oxygen, abdomen trichi god. So yeah. Well,
23:09
Speaker 1: one of the things I saw that that I thought
23:11
Speaker 1: was like really really interesting is um. As we'll see
23:14
Speaker 1: when we talk about what they eat. Most of the
23:17
Speaker 1: adults that you see flying around either don't eat or
23:20
Speaker 1: maybe eat plants, stuff like nectar and pollen. But there's
23:25
Speaker 1: this one kind of firefly which is actually pretty abundant
23:28
Speaker 1: in um in North America, the photourist species, where the
23:35
Speaker 1: female of this species will actually mimic the female of
23:43
Speaker 1: a rival species, Photinus, right, and they'll attract males from
23:49
Speaker 1: the other species the Photinus species to come over thinking
23:52
Speaker 1: that they're going to mate, and then what they find
23:55
Speaker 1: out is that, oh wait, this is the one female
23:57
Speaker 1: of the one species that is actually um going to
24:01
Speaker 1: eat me, that is actually predatory against other fireflies, and
24:04
Speaker 1: now I'm dead. Yeah, they're tricksters because the male uh
24:09
Speaker 1: folturists can also imitate another male Photinus to attract a
24:14
Speaker 1: female of its own species. So she shows up thinking
24:18
Speaker 1: that she might have food, and he's like, oh no,
24:21
Speaker 1: it's it's time to get down in boogie. That's right.
24:24
Speaker 1: And then beyond that, chuck it goes even one more
24:26
Speaker 1: level deeper because they're pretty sure. And there's this really
24:29
Speaker 1: great website called firefly dot org. It's run by a
24:32
Speaker 1: guy named Ben Peiffer. From what I understand, he seems
24:36
Speaker 1: to be quite dedicated to fireflies. But he uh, this
24:39
Speaker 1: is the only place I saw it. But he was
24:41
Speaker 1: saying that some researchers think that male folturists, no male photinus,
24:49
Speaker 1: the ones that end up sometimes being food for female
24:53
Speaker 1: fo tourists. Male foutinesses have figured out how to put
24:58
Speaker 1: off bad um flash patterns that make it look like
25:03
Speaker 1: a female folturists impersonating a male Photinus to scare off
25:08
Speaker 1: other male patiness fireflies so that it reduces competition for
25:13
Speaker 1: female potesses. And that's kind of brain breaking, it really is.
25:17
Speaker 1: But this is apparently what the fireflies are doing with
25:19
Speaker 1: their time, that and getting down and boogie in. Like
25:24
Speaker 1: we said, it's a few hours, one to three hours
25:26
Speaker 1: of that, and when this happens, the male is gonna
25:31
Speaker 1: transfer his sperm packet to the female. And they call
25:35
Speaker 1: this in the field of studying this in entomology, they
25:39
Speaker 1: call it a nuptial gift that the male gives a female.
25:44
Speaker 1: And this all occurs um individually over like we said,
25:47
Speaker 1: a few hours, but a few days total of mating
25:50
Speaker 1: that's gonna happen, usually in the spring. Then the lady
25:53
Speaker 1: is gonna lay her fertilized eggs either on the ground
25:56
Speaker 1: or just below the surface in the maybe in some
25:59
Speaker 1: rotting logs or and you know, multi sort of leaves
26:02
Speaker 1: and things like that. Gotta be moist. And then three
26:05
Speaker 1: or four weeks later they're gonna hatch out those little
26:07
Speaker 1: larvae who were going to live on the ground, terrorizing
26:12
Speaker 1: their neighbors for about two years. And in the meantime,
26:15
Speaker 1: mom and dad have gone off and died because they
26:18
Speaker 1: only live as adults for a few weeks. But you
26:21
Speaker 1: said it, there's larvae live for two up to two years.
26:24
Speaker 1: It's by far the longest part of the life cycle.
26:28
Speaker 1: And they are terrors of the miniature world down there, yes,
26:32
Speaker 1: they and they have mandibles and they inject their prey
26:36
Speaker 1: and paralyze them with neurotoxins. And then and I know
26:40
Speaker 1: we've talked about some other insects that do this. They
26:42
Speaker 1: they secrete these enzymes that basically liquefy what they're trying
26:46
Speaker 1: to eat, so they can just suck it up. It's
26:48
Speaker 1: like a seth brindle fly. Yeah exactly. Uh. And then
26:54
Speaker 1: in that stage, they they'll eat worms, and worms will
26:59
Speaker 1: also eat them return the favor. But they'll eat snails,
27:02
Speaker 1: elat slugs, they'll eat other insects, and they're just down
27:07
Speaker 1: there kind of wreaking havoc and then also trying not
27:10
Speaker 1: to get eaten. Yeah, because it goes both ways in
27:13
Speaker 1: that world. Um and frogs apparently will eat firefly larva
27:17
Speaker 1: pretty pretty commonly. They'll also eat firefly adults that land
27:21
Speaker 1: on the ground. I think snakes leap firefly adults on
27:25
Speaker 1: the ground. Some birds I think ducks do, but it's
27:28
Speaker 1: not necessarily on purpose. They might just get swept up
27:31
Speaker 1: with some other actual duck food they might caught up
27:34
Speaker 1: in the frenzy pretty much. And then fish also like
27:37
Speaker 1: to eat um, firefly eggs and larva that are like
27:41
Speaker 1: in marshy areas, like rice paddies or things like that.
27:44
Speaker 1: But Apparently the most widespread and abundant predators against firefly
27:50
Speaker 1: larva are spiders. But don't feel bad, because firefly larva
27:55
Speaker 1: eats spiders as well. And there are also some spiders
27:58
Speaker 1: that have learned, like, you know, really want to eat
28:00
Speaker 1: a firefly. I'm I'm kind of scared of those things.
28:03
Speaker 1: That turns out. Yeah, so here's the deal. They You know,
28:07
Speaker 1: when you see them flying around, they're flying around very
28:09
Speaker 1: sort of lazily. They're lighting up their lanterns, broadcasting that
28:15
Speaker 1: they're out there. Uh. And the reason that they're broadcasting
28:19
Speaker 1: their presence is like you would think that that's not good, like, oh,
28:22
Speaker 1: you know, a bird will swooped down and eat me
28:24
Speaker 1: because they clearly see me flying around. That's actually a
28:27
Speaker 1: warning sign because they're not great flyers. They're not gonna
28:31
Speaker 1: dodge you in out maneuver you Maverick style in a dogfight.
28:36
Speaker 1: They're gonna secrete these nasty um I guess they're toxins
28:42
Speaker 1: that are really really bitter. They really kind of stink.
28:45
Speaker 1: I think if you're studying fire flies and you have
28:47
Speaker 1: like thousands of them in a room, it can kind
28:49
Speaker 1: of be pretty stinky in there. Yeah. A nauseating odor
28:52
Speaker 1: when ten thousand to twenty thousand are confined and yeah,
28:56
Speaker 1: that was one researchers quote. Um. So what they do
28:59
Speaker 1: is as they deliver this bitter like I think they
29:02
Speaker 1: secrete if you, drops of blood, and it's just this
29:05
Speaker 1: toxic bitter taste that you know everything's eating them, but
29:08
Speaker 1: everything is also like, oh God, why did I just
29:10
Speaker 1: eat that? Yeah, And apparently this this toxin that they create,
29:14
Speaker 1: luci bifhagens, which is not a great word. Um. It
29:19
Speaker 1: is akin to those neurotoxins that some like poisonous tree
29:24
Speaker 1: frogs produced and secrete. UM. So it could conceivably kill
29:28
Speaker 1: some things. And I think that might be the same
29:30
Speaker 1: neurotoxin that that the um larvae uses venom to paralyze
29:35
Speaker 1: poor slugs and stuff like that. Um. But some species
29:39
Speaker 1: have been like, you don't want to eat like fireflies,
29:41
Speaker 1: Like in in one study of trying to feed them
29:44
Speaker 1: to lizards mix in with meal worms, the lizards will
29:47
Speaker 1: like like swipe basically spit out and wipe away like
29:51
Speaker 1: the firefly and then wipe its snout with its forearm
29:55
Speaker 1: like gross. It's that was disgusting. A think bats learned
30:01
Speaker 1: Bats are smart. You know, we have a great episode
30:03
Speaker 1: on bats and they have learned not to eat them
30:07
Speaker 1: because they did a study in Boise State where they uh,
30:10
Speaker 1: they coded their ab the little lanterns with paint so
30:13
Speaker 1: the bats couldn't see them, and the bats started eating them.
30:17
Speaker 1: But it didn't take very long till the bats were
30:19
Speaker 1: like literally spitting them out and saying, ah, you jerks,
30:22
Speaker 1: why are you painting those lanterns. That's I don't want
30:25
Speaker 1: to eat those things. We learned not to eat those things, right.
30:27
Speaker 1: And they also found that bats that I guess hadn't
30:30
Speaker 1: been exposed to fireflies before, um, if they didn't paint
30:34
Speaker 1: the fireflies, those bats learned even faster to avoid fireflies
30:37
Speaker 1: because of the Bible luminescence. So what these Boise State
30:41
Speaker 1: researchers who conducted that studies concluded was that the bioluminescence,
30:46
Speaker 1: the flashing of fireflies and lightning bugs um actually developed
30:51
Speaker 1: as a way to warn off predators, including bats, and
30:55
Speaker 1: that it probably co evolved with that predation and then
30:58
Speaker 1: became the main trait that it is now, which is
31:02
Speaker 1: a courtship ritual later on, but that it had a
31:05
Speaker 1: different purpose at first. That's pretty interesting. Yeah, and they
31:09
Speaker 1: think this because, um, I think in some species the
31:12
Speaker 1: eggs in the larvae actually glow as well, and they're
31:15
Speaker 1: clearly not mating. So no, not yet, not for hours
31:19
Speaker 1: at a time. I can tell you. All right, Uh,
31:23
Speaker 1: let's take another break maybe, and we'll talk about why
31:26
Speaker 1: these blightning bugs are disappearing. Almost said the F word,
31:31
Speaker 1: and uh, what we can do about it? Right after this, Chuck,
31:58
Speaker 1: I think it is one of the addist things on
32:01
Speaker 1: planet Earth. Yea, and I mean that quite actually, that
32:05
Speaker 1: fireflies are vanishing very quickly, because we're talking about an
32:11
Speaker 1: enormous drop. And again this is largely anecdotal from people
32:15
Speaker 1: at a certain age, like our age group grew up
32:18
Speaker 1: like seeing tons of fireflies, like so many fireflies you
32:22
Speaker 1: couldn't it never even occurred to you that they could
32:24
Speaker 1: possibly go away to where they're just gone in some
32:28
Speaker 1: places now or in in my backyard in in Atlanta,
32:32
Speaker 1: it's like, you know, if I see five or six,
32:36
Speaker 1: I'm like, it's a good night tonight, whereas before it
32:39
Speaker 1: was like the whole yard would have been filled up
32:41
Speaker 1: with it twenty years ago. And it's really distressing to
32:44
Speaker 1: think of a world without fireflies, and that seems like
32:48
Speaker 1: where we're headed, and it's all our fault, basically, it
32:51
Speaker 1: really is. It's um. I see them a lot more
32:54
Speaker 1: at my house than I do. UM I feel like
32:59
Speaker 1: elsewhere in our neighborhood because our yard is crazy and
33:03
Speaker 1: it's wild and it's you know, we don't spray for
33:06
Speaker 1: mosquitoes or use pesticides or anything like that. So we
33:08
Speaker 1: have a pretty good like wild habitat back there for
33:11
Speaker 1: all kinds of insects. Um. But you know, for a
33:16
Speaker 1: long time they were harvested I think in different parts
33:19
Speaker 1: of the world. Uh, they were harvested commercially in Japan
33:24
Speaker 1: the Gingi firefly, and then in the US from sixty
33:28
Speaker 1: to about ninety five, the Sigma Chemical Company harvested about
33:33
Speaker 1: three million a year to get that uh, that lucifhrase
33:37
Speaker 1: and loose friend. Yeah. Apparently they sold it to the
33:40
Speaker 1: biomedical industry who would use it to like detect spoiled
33:43
Speaker 1: milk and stuff like that. Exactly. No, for real, that's
33:46
Speaker 1: what they were. That's what all those are harvested for.
33:49
Speaker 1: Saying all that stuff we already talked about, that's what
33:52
Speaker 1: they needed it for. A hundred million fireflies over that
33:55
Speaker 1: like thirty something year period, we're harvested by for their
33:59
Speaker 1: loose phrase. And unfortunately, somebody, some saint patron saint of
34:03
Speaker 1: fireflies and I think that's Nathan Fillion. You're right, Nathan
34:08
Speaker 1: Phillion synthesized um lucipher ase and it started to become
34:14
Speaker 1: widely available and cheaper, and so they lit the fireflies alone.
34:18
Speaker 1: After that, Why did it take fifteen years to seize
34:21
Speaker 1: it just to roll it out? I guess I think
34:23
Speaker 1: it was more like ten, and it was probably really
34:25
Speaker 1: expensive at first, and then it took about ten years
34:27
Speaker 1: for them to figure out how to produce it mass
34:29
Speaker 1: produce it cheaply. And then the Sigma Chemical Company was like,
34:34
Speaker 1: it's a penny less than the lightning bug was sold. Um.
34:39
Speaker 1: So yeah, you are seeing fewer fireflies. It's not a
34:42
Speaker 1: figment of your imagination. Um. They surveyed I think three
34:47
Speaker 1: fifty lightning bug experts and they said it's really three things,
34:52
Speaker 1: and they're all because of us. It's habitat loss, toxic chemicals,
34:57
Speaker 1: and light pollution. UM, habitat loss they have. I don't
35:00
Speaker 1: think we mentioned this. Is to me that one of
35:02
Speaker 1: the coolest facts of the show is that if you
35:04
Speaker 1: see a lightning bug in your backyard, then it's it
35:07
Speaker 1: was it has a very high likelihood of being born
35:10
Speaker 1: in your backyard. It's really they're super super localized. And
35:14
Speaker 1: I just love the thought of that that they sort
35:15
Speaker 1: of live on your property. Yeah, I mean, like that's
35:18
Speaker 1: that's that's their whole world, right there is your little backyard.
35:21
Speaker 1: So it kind of makes you like when I heard that,
35:23
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, I want to I want to
35:25
Speaker 1: nurture that and take care of it. Like these these
35:27
Speaker 1: are like family. Basically, they're like yard family. You know,
35:32
Speaker 1: they're not interlopers or not neighbors. They're like they belong
35:35
Speaker 1: in your yard. That's their yard in a lot of ways.
35:38
Speaker 1: So it's I thought that was kind of neat to realize. Um.
35:42
Speaker 1: One of the problems of that is the chuck is
35:44
Speaker 1: that they don't migrate very very well, if at all.
35:48
Speaker 1: So if if you disrupt their habitat and kill off
35:51
Speaker 1: the firefly population, they're like that they might be gone
35:55
Speaker 1: until unless you go find some other firefly larva and
35:57
Speaker 1: bring them back, Like a new group is not necessarily
36:01
Speaker 1: going to migrate in and repopulate the area. Yeah, And
36:05
Speaker 1: this is like we're looking at you individual homeowner. Like
36:09
Speaker 1: you can say, like the contractor who comes in and
36:12
Speaker 1: bulldozes a forest to build a neighborhood. And that's certainly true.
36:16
Speaker 1: But if you say, you know what I don't like, Uh,
36:19
Speaker 1: I don't have a view of blank. So I'm going
36:22
Speaker 1: to cut down these seven trees in my backyard to
36:25
Speaker 1: have a big golf course like seeing, Um, you're disrupting
36:28
Speaker 1: their habitat by doing that. Yeah, for sure, I don't
36:32
Speaker 1: want to be too judgy, but I am very much
36:34
Speaker 1: judging you. Well, I think we should take the other
36:36
Speaker 1: tech and and then promote things people can do, so
36:40
Speaker 1: I get I'm interested on the one hand, and then
36:42
Speaker 1: layam with the haymaker of how they can all right,
36:45
Speaker 1: how they can help. One of the other problems is um,
36:48
Speaker 1: artificial light at night? Chuck? Yeah, Allen A l A
36:53
Speaker 1: n it is uh, you know light blue. We should
36:56
Speaker 1: do a whole episode on light blution or something that
36:58
Speaker 1: right out of my mouth. How do they smell? Gross? Um?
37:04
Speaker 1: Oh weird? Did you have a fritata for breakfast? How? Yeah?
37:08
Speaker 1: Can you smell the olives them? There? You can smell
37:10
Speaker 1: them on the words. So we're talking about everything from
37:14
Speaker 1: just street lights and business lights and any any kind
37:19
Speaker 1: of light you would find in an urban or more
37:22
Speaker 1: suburban or suburban area, to something called sky glow, which
37:26
Speaker 1: is that just more diffuse illumination that you kind of
37:29
Speaker 1: see everywhere as well now, and that can be so
37:32
Speaker 1: bright it can exceed full moon levels. And you know,
37:37
Speaker 1: I see that stuff a little bit out at the
37:40
Speaker 1: camp even in the middle of the woods. You can
37:42
Speaker 1: see that skyglow sort of on the lower horizon offt
37:44
Speaker 1: pudding it is. But when you're a lightning bug and
37:48
Speaker 1: like you rely on light to find mates, if you're
37:51
Speaker 1: distracted by a bright light um or the light that
37:55
Speaker 1: you're putting out is being drowned out by competing artificial light,
38:00
Speaker 1: that's a real problem and that can that can lead
38:02
Speaker 1: to a decline in the population so um especially when
38:06
Speaker 1: you combine habitat loss with you know, somebody keeping their
38:09
Speaker 1: back porch light on all night, every night, year round.
38:14
Speaker 1: That's that's not good for the lightning bugs and it's
38:16
Speaker 1: a big problem for them. So too our cars, because
38:19
Speaker 1: so many fireflies and lightning bugs live in wooded areas.
38:23
Speaker 1: We've built so many roads through the woods that when
38:25
Speaker 1: people drive through there at night. Those car lights can
38:28
Speaker 1: actually create problem for their courtship and they're hours long
38:33
Speaker 1: coupling as well, that's right. Uh. And then the last thing,
38:37
Speaker 1: of course is you know, if you're using pesticides and
38:41
Speaker 1: herbicides on your lawn and in your yard, you're killing
38:44
Speaker 1: all kinds of things, including lightning bugs. If you're spraying
38:47
Speaker 1: for mosquitoes, you are you are wrecking the pollinating system
38:52
Speaker 1: in your in your property and killing lightning bugs. And uh,
38:58
Speaker 1: I am not going to judge because US told me
39:00
Speaker 1: not to, But don'ts pray for mosquitoes. Just don't. That's
39:06
Speaker 1: supposed to be a last resort. Like, there's so many
39:08
Speaker 1: other things you can do to get rid of mosquitoes
39:11
Speaker 1: beyond just spraying for them. And then yeah, not just
39:14
Speaker 1: the mosquito spray, but any neo nicotinoid pesticide is really
39:19
Speaker 1: bad for basically every insect in the area, including bees.
39:23
Speaker 1: Remember our colony collapse episode. Yeah, so saying all the
39:26
Speaker 1: all the pollinators are being affected, just it's devastating. But
39:30
Speaker 1: in addition to the chemicals too, you can mow your
39:33
Speaker 1: lawn too much. Um our our lawns actually make a
39:37
Speaker 1: pretty good habitat in the absence of other like habitats
39:42
Speaker 1: that lightning bugs prefer. If you keep your your grass
39:46
Speaker 1: long enough, you want to kind of provide a buffer
39:48
Speaker 1: between the mower blade and the lightning bug. So if
39:51
Speaker 1: you cut your grass a lot and keep it nice
39:53
Speaker 1: and trim, may want to consider growing it out, you know,
39:56
Speaker 1: beyond like say the two inch length, and you can
39:59
Speaker 1: mow it. I just know that when you're mowing it,
40:01
Speaker 1: you're also stepping on and crushing lightning bug larvae too. So, um,
40:05
Speaker 1: just be thoughtful when you mow your lawn. How about that? Yeah,
40:09
Speaker 1: be thoughtful. Um. Mulching is a great idea. I just
40:14
Speaker 1: I'm actually down to kind of almost zero grass, but
40:16
Speaker 1: when I did have grass, I would just multum. I'm
40:20
Speaker 1: not a big fan of raking leaves. Um, certainly as
40:24
Speaker 1: a stuff you should know, co host, I'm not a
40:26
Speaker 1: fan of blowing leaves because we know that you are
40:28
Speaker 1: of the devil if you're doing that, right, Yeah, what,
40:34
Speaker 1: you don't hate leaf blowers anymore? I hate leaf blowers,
40:37
Speaker 1: but I use one now. Oh, I know things have changed.
40:43
Speaker 1: I feel like I should really I needed to fess
40:46
Speaker 1: up about it. It's it's battery powered, and I use
40:49
Speaker 1: it sparingly. But yes, I have a leaf blower. I
40:51
Speaker 1: do too. I never hated him like you did. I
40:53
Speaker 1: just don't think you should like blow your whole lawn
40:55
Speaker 1: like out in the street. I use it totally, so
40:57
Speaker 1: it's just to blow my leaves off my deck back
41:00
Speaker 1: into my yard. You know who hates the sound of
41:02
Speaker 1: the leaf blower almost violently? Is David Spade? Really? Yeah?
41:07
Speaker 1: If you follow my Instagram, probably one out of every
41:10
Speaker 1: five posts is like him, just like ripping into some
41:13
Speaker 1: guy who's using a leaf blower over like on the
41:15
Speaker 1: other end of his neighborhood. He hates leaf blowers. We'll
41:20
Speaker 1: have to exchange brands because I don't know if your's
41:25
Speaker 1: as good. But I got a great cordless battery powered
41:28
Speaker 1: blower that's super powerful. I used the de Walt battery power.
41:31
Speaker 1: It's pretty great. Okay, what do you use? I can't
41:35
Speaker 1: remember the name of it. Have to good. Look. Is
41:36
Speaker 1: it one of those like Eco ones or Orange? Is
41:39
Speaker 1: probably husk Varnae Echo No, no, no no, no, it's not
41:44
Speaker 1: one of those big brands. I think it's like works
41:45
Speaker 1: like w O r xx. Yeah. Yeah, they're good too. Boy,
41:50
Speaker 1: I was always like, uh, those battery power and don't
41:52
Speaker 1: have the juice you need, but these have to do. Now,
41:54
Speaker 1: Yeah they have. I mean I've got a battery powered
41:57
Speaker 1: lawn mower that I charged one time and still just
42:00
Speaker 1: cuts like crazy, like you know, a year after the
42:04
Speaker 1: first time I charged it. They definitely would. That's what
42:06
Speaker 1: I got to if they last a long time. So um, chuck.
42:09
Speaker 1: One thing you said about blowing leaves out into the
42:11
Speaker 1: yard around into like like your curb or something like that,
42:14
Speaker 1: or even raking them up and like like removing them,
42:18
Speaker 1: like that is where firefly lava live. So you're removing
42:22
Speaker 1: the firefly lava from your yard to god knows where,
42:25
Speaker 1: probably not someplace where they're going to be cared for
42:27
Speaker 1: and repopulate, probably going to die in the bargain. So yes,
42:32
Speaker 1: if you're if you really care about your grass, you're
42:34
Speaker 1: not just gonna leave leaves on there. But you know,
42:37
Speaker 1: if you have garden beds, you could do that. Apparently
42:40
Speaker 1: you don't want to clean up your garden in the fall.
42:43
Speaker 1: You want to just leave it as is over the winter,
42:45
Speaker 1: because that is a habitat for all sorts of great
42:48
Speaker 1: creatures that keep your soil going, including firefly larva. Um,
42:52
Speaker 1: and then you clean it up in the spring, and
42:54
Speaker 1: if you don't do like rake your leaves off of
42:57
Speaker 1: your lawn, don't just throw them away, like put them
42:59
Speaker 1: in paper bag and keep them wet, like maybe under
43:02
Speaker 1: a tree for the winter, and then work them into
43:05
Speaker 1: the soil in the spring, and you've got a great
43:08
Speaker 1: yard suddenly for the firefly larva that you just kind
43:11
Speaker 1: of helped nurture over the winter. Yeah. Plus it's great
43:15
Speaker 1: for your garden beds. It's just really super rich, uh,
43:19
Speaker 1: good stuff, it really is. What else you said, Basically,
43:22
Speaker 1: you don't want to cut down those trees to give
43:24
Speaker 1: yourself a golf course view. You want to kind of
43:27
Speaker 1: leave parts of your yard wild too, right, Yeah, I
43:30
Speaker 1: mean my backyard now is a little too wild for
43:32
Speaker 1: my taste. Um, it's pretty crazy. Oh man, I gotta
43:37
Speaker 1: come over and see it. Yeah, it's you know, Yeah,
43:41
Speaker 1: i mean, Emily went nuts planning things over the past
43:44
Speaker 1: few years, and it's just, uh, it's something else. It's
43:47
Speaker 1: like it's it feels like a a science experiment going
43:51
Speaker 1: on back there. Yeah. Um, so yeah, we let it
43:54
Speaker 1: go wild. But you can just let parts of your
43:57
Speaker 1: like designate a corner of your yard and let that
44:00
Speaker 1: kind of go a little bit crazy. Remember remember when
44:02
Speaker 1: we studied dar one years ago, how he would just
44:05
Speaker 1: let everything go crazy because he could just study so
44:07
Speaker 1: much more stuff. Yeah, and like if you have like
44:10
Speaker 1: a tree line or something on the fringes of your yard,
44:13
Speaker 1: let that go crazy. Let it grow out a little
44:15
Speaker 1: bit more, like you know, like leave some of the
44:18
Speaker 1: shrubs you think are kind of ugly that are growing
44:20
Speaker 1: in there, or replace them with native shrubs even better,
44:23
Speaker 1: or like it can be as simple as if a
44:25
Speaker 1: tree falls down in your yard and it's not like
44:29
Speaker 1: covering the grass, just leave it where it is and
44:31
Speaker 1: let it rock. That's a great firefly habitat right there. Totally.
44:36
Speaker 1: The final thing you can do, well, there's a couple
44:38
Speaker 1: of things. But turn those lights off. You've got big
44:41
Speaker 1: old yard spotlights. I don't know what you're doing, but
44:44
Speaker 1: no one wants that. Your neighbors don't want that. Fireflies
44:47
Speaker 1: don't want that. Uh, nobody likes that. At least put
44:50
Speaker 1: them on like a motion sensitive thing that turns off
44:52
Speaker 1: after like a minute. Yeah, yeah, that's that's fine, But yeah,
44:56
Speaker 1: turn those lights off. Try and make it dark. And
44:58
Speaker 1: then this last thing is something and I'm really bummed
45:00
Speaker 1: that I missed out on this year. I did not
45:02
Speaker 1: know about it, but I'm definitely gonna sign up. It's
45:05
Speaker 1: called the Vanishing Firefly Project, and what they do is
45:09
Speaker 1: offer up an app that's for free and you on
45:13
Speaker 1: three different days they have a census June six, July four,
45:18
Speaker 1: in August one where you go out and you count
45:22
Speaker 1: fireflies or lightning bugs in your yard for a certain
45:26
Speaker 1: amount of time and then enter that into the census
45:29
Speaker 1: and they're getting a pretty robust like body of data
45:32
Speaker 1: from this. Yeah, there's another group called Firefly Watch from
45:35
Speaker 1: the Museum of Science in Boston, UM and they have
45:39
Speaker 1: an even more extensive census. But it's basically like citizen
45:43
Speaker 1: scientists contributing to too much needed data because, like we
45:48
Speaker 1: were saying, all the stuff about the fireflies vanishing is
45:50
Speaker 1: anecdotal um and only now our researchers really starting to
45:55
Speaker 1: turn to studying the issues so we can figure out
45:58
Speaker 1: what the biggest problems are and how to aviate them
46:00
Speaker 1: so we don't lose fireflies because nobody wants that. I
46:04
Speaker 1: don't care how nihilistic you are, I don't care how
46:06
Speaker 1: little you care about anything. If you stopped and really
46:10
Speaker 1: searched your feelings, you would find that you don't want
46:14
Speaker 1: a world without fireflies. Agreed or lightning bugs. Agreed even more,
46:21
Speaker 1: And I have to say, Chuck, I really feel like
46:23
Speaker 1: we brought the country together much needed by using both
46:27
Speaker 1: fireflies and lightning bugs in this episode. Agreed. Okay, Well,
46:32
Speaker 1: since Chuck said agreed at least three times, it's time
46:35
Speaker 1: for listener mail. I'm gonna call this hot off the presses.
46:42
Speaker 1: Hey guys, this is Kelsey from Chico, California. I'm a
46:45
Speaker 1: counselor and professor at local community college and I've never
46:49
Speaker 1: gotten sarcasm. My family is very blunt, and if anyone
46:52
Speaker 1: is sarcastic, well I wouldn't know it. I start all
46:56
Speaker 1: my classes. That was sarchasm, right, don't think so? I
47:01
Speaker 1: start all my classes explaining that I'm being genuine. And
47:04
Speaker 1: if you think I said something sarcastic, I didn't. But
47:07
Speaker 1: in the podcast you mentioned the individuals that are neuro
47:10
Speaker 1: uh atypical might not get sarcasm. My friends who work
47:14
Speaker 1: in special education of totally used hand signs with me
47:18
Speaker 1: when they're being sarcastic in your podcast, which I've listened
47:22
Speaker 1: to from the beginning. I only know Josh is being
47:24
Speaker 1: sarcastic when I think that was kind of mean, and
47:28
Speaker 1: then Chuck giggles a little bit. That's the tell I guess. Yeah. Uh.
47:33
Speaker 1: When my husband is sarcastic and he gets a double laugh,
47:37
Speaker 1: meaning he laughs at himself for the joke, I do
47:39
Speaker 1: that a lot and then giggles a little when he
47:41
Speaker 1: has to explain it to me, that's when I know
47:44
Speaker 1: he's being sarcastic. Uh. Anyway, you two are great and
47:48
Speaker 1: often use your podcast as another form of learning in
47:51
Speaker 1: my courses. And that is from Kelsey. Thanks a lot, Kelsey,
47:55
Speaker 1: thanks for pointing all that out because I hadn't really
47:57
Speaker 1: realized how they could be in parted. But Chuck is
48:01
Speaker 1: my sarcasm Beard. Everybody, thank you for that. I appreciate it. Uh. Well,
48:09
Speaker 1: we appreciate Kelsey too for writing in. And if you
48:12
Speaker 1: want to be like Kelsey, you can send us an
48:14
Speaker 1: email to Stuff Podcast at i heeart radio dot com.
48:21
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know is a production of I Heart Radio.
48:24
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48:27
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48:30
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