Let's Talk About American Fireflies (Lightning Bugs) 

Lightning bugs are most active at dusk about 30 minutes after sunset. They don't do it in the middle of the night.

As a kid, it would've been magical. There's an old video of me trying to capture them and I used to be into catching other bugs/creatures. These days, however, it would be absolutely traumatizing. Unless I was far enough away and not surrounded by them lol.

We also need to chill out with the light pollution. That’s also lead to a much smaller population in my area than when I was a kid. The lights mess up their mating.

I've heard that highly manicured lawns (and other habitat destruction) are also responsible for their decline. Growing up in suburban New England they were a common sight. By the time i was an adult they were gone completely

Truth

The only thing missing from this list is the little tree frogs. 🐸

@@KatjeKat86O M G … I L O V E that sound, and soooo miss it living in AZ!!

@@KatjeKat86 Oh I love the peeper frogs!!

@@kkrolf2782I couldn't agree more. I move to Az from Indiana.

In the same way that peepers are synonymous with spring!

we would pinch the glowing butts off and stick them to our shirts and round around in the dark playing tag.

Torturing small animals is one of the signs of a budding serial killer… Just saying:

​@@michaelgarrow3239it's entirely possible (and definitely what happened) that you don't really think about that stuff when you're a kid. Or whatever, you can be completely cynical if you really need to morally grandstand rn

@@kemp10 - Bad attempt at humor…

⁠@@michaelgarrow3239so I guess every single kid that caught fireflies as a child is a budding serial killer? Millions of serial killers?

We didn't have them in California as far as I know. I moved to Wisconsin and the first time I saw one I realized they weren't a myth.

Visiting a friend we watched a marvelous sundown. My friend said you get used to it. No, it will never stop to amaze me. I will also be forever excited to see the moon. I saw glowworms only twice in my life and will always keep it in fond memory. Today I made a screenshot of this video 01:55 to have a wonderful background picture for my computer.🍒

I've been doing ecolandscaping, and adding more and more native plants, and I'm seeing lots more lightning bugs. (South Carolina) Recently read that seeing lots of them is a sign of a healthy yard.

Very sad indeed. I'm a bit younger and in PA and hardly ever see them any more. I grew up in IL and remember the cornfields being alight with them.

I’m not quite 40 and I can attest that they used to be everywhere and the decrease has been shocking. The saddest part is, from my understanding, the problem is basic light pollution disrupting their mating. People just have to turn the light off 😞 I realize this is impossible in big cities but I’ve since made it a point to turn the porch lights off at night.

​@@linguaphile42I'm going to look up what kind of ecolandscaping is good for them, I'm honestly intrigued as to why some areas around where I live have a decent population of them and others just don't. Someone else mentioned light pollution messing with them, that makes sense because I don't see them around lots of artificial light.

Im from kansas, seen millions as a kid, not so many last few years hardly see them anymore

😆😆

Oh, we do have glowworms and mosquitos in Germany and that's not a new phenomenon. The floodplain forests of the upper river Rhine Valley have always been full of mosquitos and until the short colder period in the 1810s a breeding ground for malaria. Nowadays the tiger mosquito has arrived and with it again the risk of malaria and (new) Dengue fever. Let's hope that BTI (a natural treatment against mosquito larvae in the water) also works against tiger mosquitos. As glowworms and mosquitos live in the same areas and are active at the same time as mosquitos (and you absolutely want to avoid mosquitos) I've only rarely seen them myself.

😂😂😂

That is such a cute story! I have a friend from Switzerland. I'll have to ask him if he ever saw them as a kid and if not what his first impression of them were when he first saw one when he moved to America.

That’s funny! 😂

This nigga said ‘a thousand bullfrogs’

@@codiefitz3876 You really ought to spend a night or two outside the city.

I had none when I moved in my house 16 years ago. I let the grass grow high each year before I cut the first time in summer. About 5 years in, I saw them for the first time in my yard and even in the neighborhood. I don't know, but I kinda think I helped by giving them the high grass to grow in. (For the record, I just let my grass grow until the city sends me a letter telling me to cut it. Because I like to let it grow.)

Christ, one cricket kept me up for a month. I'm a Californian, I would K myself if I had to hear that all night...

@@codiefitz3876 where I live, there really are that many out on a nearby Marsh. Their sounds all kind of blend together like one giant symphony. It's beautiful.

That's DELIGHTFUL!!!

😂😂😂

That’s cute^^

He should have been familiar with glow worms, if he was an older man in the 1970s. They weren’t as common in Scotland, but they were a well known part of our nature - they were so common in Europe that British soldiers used them in WW1 to read maps and letters. Ours don’t fly though, and we’ve now virtually wiped them out with our rising population, light pollution, habitat destruction and pesticide use.

@@adamzain6770 Are they the females of a similar species? The female lightning bugs of the US stay on the vegetation, at least during mating season.

The story of your hopeless enslavement 👉 The Connections (2021) [short documentary] 💖

Of course, to a Brit, the term “Starbug” has a whole other smegging meaning… ;)

As have I, it is truly amazing when they do that. Only happens when you get really large groupings of them, but you cannot believe your eyes when they do!

This happens in the Smoky Mountains for a few weeks each year.

I used to live in an abandoned school building in alabama and they would come inside and put on shows for me. Sometimes groups in different areas synchronize...so a window will flash and then a whole building will respond. I also witnessed it in TN where it appeared one hill was talking to another hill and they seemed to be synchronized to the music as well. It's disorienting when they all flash individually at different times. Like thousands of moving strobe lights in the forest.

@@AndyDrake-FOOKYT that’s wild!

Or when they are just out of sync and make a wave!

why shake it? i like let them land on my hand and take off from a fingertip

The red seven-spotted ladybugs are chill. I hardly ever see them anymore though. The orange Asian ladybugs on the other hand, while great at controlling invasive aphids, are annoying as hell. Every fall they swarm buildings and find any way possible to get inside to stay warm for the winter. The red ones never did that.

Dominion (2018)

As a gardener...fuck butterflies. Their babies are insanely destructive

True & here in rural east central Illinois , they appeared later than usual this Summer , perhaps due to our severe winter & summer storms .

Even in the 90's they were everywhere. I've noticed since I was a kid in the 90 that bugs in general have severely declined. I guess we can thank the overuse of commercial pesticides for that.

Come visit Southeast Missouri around this time of year. I see plenty of lightning bugs.

Dominion (2018)

@@axmajpayne I think it's actually loss of habitat. The pesticides are much reduced since the 60s. Ten years ago I was living next to a corn field in CT. Between me and the corn was a little brook (branch, river, creek, etc.) so it was damp, perfect mosquito land and you could watch the mist roll off it at sunset. It had less bugs than here in RI because everyday just before Sunset the birds went mad and flew all over about 10 ft above the ground eating bugs. After the sunset the bats went flying around overhead like mad, presumably eating any bugs left. I could hear the bats but rarely saw them.

Yep! I lived in Eastern KY as a kid and all the kids in my little neighborhood would get together with Mason jars with holes poked in the tops and run around catching them while our parents sat and talked. That will always be a core childhood memory. I once accidentally caught the light of one of the lightning bugs and it separated from the rest of the bug. It stayed lit on the side of the jar and I was so upset that I had accidentally hurt or killed one of those magical little beings.

we used to catch them thinking we could make a flashlight......then we got older and used to kill them and wipe glow paste on our arms

The story of your hopeless enslavement 👉 The Connections (2021) [short documentary] 💖

All kids in Texas too

Connecticut Yankee here, and yes we did!

Grew up in Illinois & remember as a teenager seeing aspen trees the first time in Colorado in the Fall while on a horseback riding vacation . For some reason , aspens fascinated me ! We have beautiful Fall colors here ( it's not all flat land w/ corn 'n bean fields ! 😀 ) but there's just something about aspens ... 💛

Dominion (2018)

@cremillard100... Same in reverse. Grew up in the northeast, lightning bugs everywhere... Moved to Colorado 20 years ago, can't remember seeing one.

How fabulous you’ve collected and maintained that wonderful image!! ENJOY!

a field of fireflies is on my bucket list. Almost 50 years old, lived and traveled all over most of the US, and I've never seen one, let alone a field of them.

@@devenscience8894 Oh, you ARE missing one of Mother Nature’s coolest things! Find a grassy, bush- and tree-populated area that doesn’t lose all its humidity throughout the day, and, more than likely, you will find an environment conducive to lightening bug populations. If you’re out in the midwest somewhere, check out some farmhouse’s front yard that faces east or south. Good luck!!

Yes!! I've experienced this and it is so amazing!!

@@devenscience8894How is this possible??? Do you just stick to cities?

The story of your hopeless enslavement 👉 The Connections (2021) [short documentary] 💖

It's totally true, we don't have any of those here, but when I visited the Midwest when I was a kid, there were a bunch of them.

Excellent job as usual. You might be interested in learning about the Firefly event that takes place yearly in the Smokey Mountains.

And one of the glories of the earth.

Give it time. The way things are going, they soon will be.

No wonder the Puritans in Salem Massachusetts were convinced that the devil was walking around! 😂

Apparently our falls were better, too. American painters sent landscapes back home and the folks in Europe thought they were stylized and exaggerated because nothing could be that colorful

They're in the Philippines. My mom grew up with them and was really excited to see them when she visited me in the Midwest

My wife is from Wyoming and never saw one, and actually thought they were made up like unicorns. Then she moved to Ohio and 😮

Coming from the east coast to live in north TX, I dearly missed my lightening bug summers.

LOL, I went on a double date to Disneyland one and while we were in line for Pirates the guy in the other couple was totally mystified by the little winking lights. He was visiting from England.

I'm betting that fairy lights are an attempt to recreate the effect of fireflies.

​@@tessat338I've only lived in places that have a high density of lightning bugs and I still love fairy lights. Magical looking lights are nice whether natural or store bought.

My husband is a native Californian- I’m a Navy brat and have lived all over the USA. We took a vacation to the Eastern seaboard and on to Pennsylvania for the 150th year anniversary of the battle of Gettysburg. So he wanted to take a ghost tour… we’re out on the fields and the guide is telling his stories of ghost sightings- he’s all revved up and sees the glow of the fireflies… and yes- he thinks it’s ghosts. We still laugh about this!

💕✅😆😅😂🏆

Dominion (2018)

Did growing up in Waukegan feel like a Bradbury novel?

I can almost f e e l the thrill you experienced, just through your description! T H A T was a shock to me … Oh, my!!

Interesting! I think of Washington and I think of all the nature trails there (of course, you won't see them that much in a city, though).

I took a trip to NC from WA state about 12 years ago and saw my first fireflies. Magical!

I live in Maryland as well and lightning bugs have been prominent throughout my life and I have lived in both the eastern shores of Maryland and Western Maryland.

Oh we got plenty of deer in washin... oh Fireflies, never seen one

Maybe flirting?

Oh no! Hate to hear that. Back a few years it was bumble bees.

They’re endangered? I saw more of them than usual in my backyard this year. Also if he explains they’re endangered in the video forgive me, I ran to the comments first.

@@samanthab1923 still is. There's way fewer insects in general even just since the 90s.

@@williamhardee8863I used to be able to catch them with ease and fill up a mason jar. You could see them twinkle almost en masse like a cloud. Now my kids are ecstatic to see one or two. From what I understand, the problem is light pollution disrupting their mating.

I think they’ve just moved north, I’ve never seen so many fireflies in Ottawa as I have for the past few years, and when I was little I don’t think we had any in Canada.

lauren, Google search this because I can't put links, "The Great Smoky Mountains Firefly Viewing Lottery" I saw it on 60 Minutes. Apparently thousands of fireflies gather in the great smoking mountains for a few days every year. Too many people want to go watch, so you have to pay $1 and enter your name into a lottery to be allowed to go see 🙂It is in great smoky mountains national park 🙂

I have similar experiences...people don't go sit in the dark in the forest enough anymore.

Was gonna say I love watching lightening bugs but not enough to put up with mosquitoes 😂

You know it!! Especially this year, I'm finding.

That's why I bought a house with a screen porch. Can still sit outside without being eaten alive.

I wonder if the species in your area is different than in the Midwest. Lightning bugs here are just now starting to get romantic and it will only last for a couple of weeks in August. I always associate them with "going back to school soon."

@@Killer.Queen74 called Asian Tiger mosquitoes came from Japan to Texas in a shipment of tires late 80s or 90s can’t remember. I remember looking it up awhile back because I remembered when we suddenly got more viscous mosquitoes 😂 They bite harder and are more aggressive.

I have seen 2 17yr cycles. The last one I was at a building with a parking lot with woods on 2 sides. It was so loud reverberating off the hard surfaces it sounded like a in person photon torpedo from Star Trek. Very wild.

Ah, yes, the katydids, as we called them. It sounded like the night was shivering

We have cicadas in Oklahoma at the hottest part of summer. We always know the heat is on the way out when they leave and the crickets move in.

To those in the lower parts of the lower 48, we feel the same way about your northern lights!

That's the best and most hilarious description of porcupines that I've ever heard! Stealing that one lol.

@@killinglonliness88 I would have said a cross between a porcupine and an echidna, but I'll go with that description above.

Yes! You can see them in the Gatlinburg area. I lived in the Knoxville area for 20 years but was never able to get tickets to see them. I commented that Lawrence should take a road trip to see them. I've heard it's a truly magical site to behold.

No, because porcupines are herbivorous rodents and hedgehogs are insectivores. Completely different things.

😅

thx for that! i r e a l l y liked the series, and was bummed when it was cancelled!

I aim to misbehave!

I feel like the tail end glowing is a pretty common feature of rocketships of all sorts, or at least would be in a work of sci-fi that's remotely grounded in reality, but what the heck do I know.

Wait, what's this about Disneyland now?

​@@stevethepocketthere are fake fireflies in the pirates ride at Disneyland. It's the only way most Californians will ever see them. 😬

​@@jaelynrae6045Can confirm. My buddy grew up in CA, and he is a Type A Manly Man, but on a work trip to St. Louis we were walking near the Courthouse one evening when he stopped in his tracks and gasped. "Fireflies! I've never seen them in real life before! Oh my God, its like at Disneyland, but better!" 😂 He sounded like a little kid again for a moment.

@@jaelynrae6045 Yes! Thanks for explaining! 😀

@@squirrelorama that is so cute!!! We recently moved to Lake Erie from Cali (native born and didn't travel out of state much at all) and saw real fireflies the first night we were here. It was sooo magical! Even my manly 6'1" hubby squealed like a girl and we both still get excited about seeing them every single night....months later. 😂😬

I did not know that they ate slugs! Legs are so much bigger than they are!

Pretty much the number one piece of advice for someone wanting to see cool bugs is, for the love of God, DO NOT USE PESTICIDES!!! it kills any bug it comes into contact with and seep into soil and generally is just the worst thing you could do to insects. Also, I cannot stress enough how important reintroducing native plant species are. Lots of them are endangered (just like fireflies) and the important insects of your area desperately need them to thrive!!! I'm studying right now to be a wildlife ecologist and work in wildlife conservation and, honest to God if everyone got rid of their RoundUp and pesticides and planted native plants local to your area, our precious North American insect populations (which have decreased about 70% since 1980, if I remember correctly) would have a really great chance at rebounding!! We have gorgeous butterflies and dragonflies and fireflies that are in trouble, and even the ugly/scary insects are too, and they're all really important for healthy, stable ecosystems!!!!

@@jennacided6502 Thank you!!! I'm in the process of turning my own stupid lawn into a meadow as it was originally before people messed it all up. We don't have lightnin' bugs in the PNW but in TN where I grew up I have noticed a sharp decline in them. I'm trying to encourage my dad to follow along with me in the native plant journey but he is almost 79 and is happy to have what is currently growing as it is very low maintenance for him (they are not natives sadly but I'm about to gorilla garden the crap out of his yard lol). I miss these little beetles but I"m doing my best to fix the habitat for the insects here in the PNW.

They don't have them in Seattle? I never thought about it 🤔

@@flyleelee5351 I was told that they don’t go over the mountains!?

Don't have them in Oregon. I grew up in the east & miss them.

Fantastic..