Their decline has been so sad. I moved somewhere with fireflies in 2007. The first year they were everywhere. The second year less so and they were completely gone by 2010. I always tried to leave longer grassy areas for them but they were just… gone. It was so so so sad. I didn’t grow up with them and that first summer was enchanted and magical.
I have great memories of walking down the road on a hot night with thousands of slowly blinking balls of light. The person who lives in that place now probably doesn’t even know that fireflies are supposed to be in the area.
Stopped mowing our farm, lightning bugs are back in swarms. It’s great.
I haven’t seen a firefly since I was a small child. I’ve never really thought about them before, but it is kind of sad not seeing them. Generally I hate bugs, but fireflies are pretty.
We used to catch them in jars as kids growing up in rural south. Tired to see who could get the most, then release them and watch them all make a show.
Throughout my millennial decades they’ve gone from indigenous to childhood memories :(.
We used to have thousands of these in my backyard as a kid every summer. Now I rarely see them. We’ve done a great job at destroying our ecosystems in record time. We’re so fucked
The powers that be want us to go straight from “let’s vote harder” to “it’s over”. There’s a huge range of fucked we can be - if what is lost is worth crying over, then what’s left is worth fighting over.
There are still some areas where they are common, they’re just more hidden now because the species is adverse to light pollution I’m pretty sure.
lightning bugs were cool.
Haven’t seen em in a while now that i think about it.
Because we killed them all. Pesticides, climate change, lawns… They’re dying out along with basically all bugs.
I have billions in my lawn. Just plant locals (guerilla style) and they’ll be back.
Here in Appalachia they light the trees up.
Good god I’m lucky to live here. Wildlife everywhere (fuck deer though), beautiful rolling mountains all around, very few people. It’s a fucking paradise.
Well, mostly. Very backwards, super religious people. I just pay them no mind.
What’s wrong with deer?
they’re often aggressively over populated (due to lack of predator animals, wolves i believe) as a result they tend to be culled by hunters who do it for sport/meat, and it keeps their population in check.
They often eat a lot of plants and other vegetation. So can destroy and damage gardens, be a general nuisance, and as a result of over population, can cause significant damage to an eco system. (as well as get in the way of road vehicles, which tends to be a bigger problem in rural areas) it’s dangerous
I’m no hunter or avid outdoorsman though, so if someone has some additional insight, nows your time to speak.
Nah you pretty much nailed it.
ah ok, sick.
And aggressively stupid.
Don’t forget disease as well, the amount of sick deer now is at crazy levels.
yeah, that would check out.
There are too many of them. They’re dumb. I’ve encountered a few of them smart enough to avoid eating the front of a car, but not many. I have had 5 cars smashed by them bolting out in front of me.
My favorite one was when I drove to the top of a mountain road, one bolted out in front of me. I wasn’t going fast enough to do any real damage to the car, but because I was at the top of the mountain it launched the fucker like it was tossed off a cliff. While I was sitting there in shock that it happened, not moving at all, BAM! One ran into my fucking door as hard as it could. While I was baffled by that and in total disbelief, BAM! Another runs right into my parked car at full speed.
The one I hit survived, one of the two that slammed into my parked car must have broken its neck. It died right there on the side of the road.
My car was covered in dust from the coal mines, and a perfect image of a deer that looked like a painting was there on my dented door. Tongue hanging out, stupid look on its face. I wish we had cameras in our pockets back then.
I know they can’t help it, but damn I stay anxious when driving. They’re everywhere. I hit one a few weeks ago, turn around and popped one on the nose over the weekend.
People used to hunt here and it wasn’t this bad. Not many people hunt here anymore and the farmers massacre the coyotes so nothing is eating them.
Between deer pressure and Lymantria dispar I’m worried my woods will never see a mature oak again after the current over story dies out.
They are as dumb as a bag of buckles and can be hunted with a hammer. I don’t get the appeal of “big game” hunters making a deal out of deer - they’re fucking speed bumps! And I’ve hunted!
Edit: want to impress me with hunting prowess? Hunt human - the most dangerous prey… :P
I don’t see them where I am in Appalachia. I’m also in the woods though, an fireflies tend to congregate more in meadows and pastures. A lot of those are sprayed heavily with pesticides around here, which means not many fireflies.
I’m honestly not even sure how many different baptist churches there are around me…
humans ruin everything.
I was pretty freaked out the first time I saw fireflies while stationed in the South. At first I thought I was hallucinating. Then I wondered if I was seeing aliens or something. Finally one got close to my face and I snatched it out of the air. When I opened my hand there was a little bug sitting there blinking, and I was amazed. They’re honestly the coolest creatures I’ve ever seen on this earth.
Lightning bugs are really cool! Where I live, people are usually surprised to find out that there are dozens of species native to the region.
A few years ago, I went on a trip to a different part of the US and they had a species of lightning bug where they all flash synchronously. Instead of flying around the yard, blinking seemingly at random like all the lightning bugs I’d ever seen up to that point, the synchronous ones crawled around in the bushes and trees and then when they flashed, they all flashed at the same time. It was super cool to see.
Another thing I’ve noticed about adult lightning bugs is that the populations can vary greatly from year to year around here. We might have a year or two with large numbers of them each night during the warmest parts of the year, then a year where they are few and far between.
They’re also a water quality indicator.
Funny, so is your mom
They were everywhere in my old home state. I have not seen them in decades now. I miss them.
They are much less common now. Another ill-communicated effect of climate change
Not climate change, artificial illumination. As humanity spreads, it destroys more and more…
Yeah because we have our own light now, so the bugs retired
I think over spraying pesticides also harmed their numbers.
They thrive if you don’t use pesticides and leaf blowers. I have fireflies where I live in CT. Bonus points for letting the grass grow, though that may also attract rodents and look unsightly to the neighbors.
Attracting rodents with tall grass saves me money in cat food
I was into my 30’s by the time I discovered fireflies were real. I was well aware there were bioluminescent creatures in the world but I thought fireflies just reflected light until I moved to the Midwest. They are an amazing sight when you’ve never seen them before.
I love when people find out about stuff that delights them ^^
Driving at 60mph through giant swarms is like traveling at warp speed.
I live in rural Oklahoma and they are gonna start popping off in my back yard any week now. I love sitting in my yard on a warm summer night watching them come in by the hundreds. I heard they are becoming endangered though idk
Yep turns out frequent use of pesticides kills the bugs we like just as well as the bugs we don’t like :/
They used to be indigenous where I lived. Now they are not. I suppose they cannot live on concrete, who would have thought…
I miss them. 😭🥹
One of the more annoying things about living in Florida is that we have closely related animals that are nearly identical, but they don’t have glow-butts. (At least not down in the bottom half of the state.)
I’ll wait for someone from like Lakeland to say they have them.
I remember those as a kid! Total tease
I traveled around Central Florida quite a bit as a kid, I’ve never seen the Midwest style fireflies. I have seen a glowy luminescent bug in Florida though, it was like a glow stick green and had a constant light rather than a flash. Super weird looking.
In a another life those were everywhere. Now notsomuch
It’s the same life, we just ended it
