My niece asked me why we never see lightning bugs anymore, and I didn't have a good answer.

3 comments

3 Comments

Light pollution from all the streetlights and security lights messes with their mating signals. The males flash to find females, but if there's too much background light, the females can't see them. It's like trying to have a quiet conversation at a loud concert. They just give up trying to connect, so you get fewer bugs each year.

kaip113mo ago

That "quiet conversation at a loud concert" part really hits home. Trying to find a date in all that visual noise sounds impossible. Honestly, it makes my own failed attempts at flirting look pretty good by comparison. At least I wasn't competing with a streetlight.

quinn_king1629d ago

Heard a story from my buddy who lives out in the country, he said one summer he just stopped seeing fireflies completely near his house. Turns out his neighbor installed one of those super bright LED security lights and it basically nuked the whole local population, they just vanished from that area.