During the recent trek across the country to my sister's college graduation, we saw some fireflies bioluminescing along the side of the highway (east of mid Kansas, of course). Given my internal state at the time (hungry) I wondered how fireflies might go about eating, and upon what they might dine.
The answer is not particularly satisfying. The larvae are voracious predators capable of vivisecting earthworms (warning: photographs of predation). The adults have mandibles that are suggestive of predation, but such behavior has never been observed apart from a small number of species where mimcry and trickery are used to attract members of other firefly species for a feast (in the Silver Chair sense of the phrase).
The suggestion has been made that perhaps the fireflies are slurping nectar to sustain their weeks of adult existance (they have to east something, I suppose), but no one seems to have observed any of this going on in the wild(at least I don't seem to be able to find a credible account for North American species, lthough hearsay abounds; there are instances of fireflies in captivity eating honey).
Which all suggests that someone can make a name for themselves in entomology with a clever experiment and a lot of patience (or a lot of experiments and clever patients).
Wednesday, June 11th, 2003
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