How do fireflies glow?

Fireflies twinkle and dim like stars right in your own backyard. But how do they glow and why?

Fireflies — also known as lightning bugs — are a type of beetle. They mostly use their light to “talk” to other fireflies and find a mate, according to National Geographic Kids.

Fireflies have a special organ under their abdomens that take in oxygen. Inside their cells, they combine oxygen with a substance called luciferin to make light with almost no heat!

This light is called bioluminescence and it lights up the ends of their abdomen, according to National Geographic Kids.

This is one of the most efficient lights known to exist, according to the Iowa Department of Natural Resources.

No human-made light source is as energy efficient as a firefly’s tail, which uses 100 percent of the energy it produces to emit light, according to the Farmers’ Almanac. By comparison, the average household light bulb releases 90 percent of its energy as heat and only 10 percent as light. Fluorescent light bulbs, which are more energy efficient, release 30 percent as heat and 70 percent as light.

There are about 2,000 firefly species. The most common firefly in Iowa is called the photinus pyralid, otherwise known as the eastern firefly or Big Dipper firefly.

Fireflies are great to have around, especially in a garden. The larvae — kind of like a baby firefly — eats soft-bodied invertebrates like snails and slugs that otherwise might eat the plants. This helps keep the pest populations under control!

Adult fireflies sometimes feed on plant pollen and nectar, helping with pollination as they buzz from one plant to another.

It can be fun to collect lightening bugs and watch them in a jar. This is a great way to see them up close! Make sure to use a jar with a pierced lid, so the lightening bugs can breathe and add a damp paper towel or unbleached coffee filter, suggests the Iowa Department of Natural Resources.

After getting a good look — less than an hour — let them go. Fireflies only live for one to two weeks, and they spend the majority of their adult lives searching for a mate.

After a few weeks, larvae hatch from their eggs, and the cycle begins all over again!

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