Lighting up the night sky

ANAHUAC— Each night, the wildlife refuge becomes alive with little lights dancing in the night sky, and a group of people visit these tiny lights to collect data on its source- the firefly.

On Saturday, May 31, a group of volunteers from Armand Bayou called the Glow Patrol came out to the Jocelyn Nungaray National Wildlife Refuge’s Texas Chenier Plain Refuge Visitor Center to share their knowledge of fireflies, followed by a night walk.

Describing fireflies filling the night sky, nine-year-old Wyatt Davis said it best, “They are beautiful.”

The Glow Patrol consists of a group of people who enjoy fireflies. With backgrounds ranging from accounting director to engineering and everything in between, they got their start when Leda Parker, a volunteer with the Armond Bayou Nature Center, founded the Massachusetts Audubon Firefly Watch program and wanted to implement it at the center.

Mary Dobberstine and Alyssa Goforth said they saw an ad for firefly research and felt pulled to help.

“I had an affinity that goes back to childhood and time by the river,” Dobberstine said. “And who doesn’t like things that glow? It’s magical.”

The Glow Patrol collects data on flash patterns, locations, and they catch fireflies in nets to photograph then release.

They go to Armond Bayou every Tuesday between February to October to collect data on fireflies and, in June of last year, began coming to the refuge in Anahuac.

There are a vast variety of fireflies, with about 2,200 species worldwide. About 170 species are in North America, and 40 are in Texas.

While it is more common in marine life, fireflies use a chemical process called bioluminescence to light up their “lanterns,” or the last two full segments of their bodies.

All fireflies can make light in the larval stage, but not all can in the adult stage.

There are three main types of fireflies: lighting bugs, glow worms and diurnal/daytime dark fireflies.

Lightning bugs use flash patterns to attract mates; each species has a different flash pattern. Females tend to have a simpler flash pattern than males.

Females glow worms are flightless, and the males either produce light or detect pheromones to find mates. Dark fireflies do not produce light, relying on pheromones to find mates.

For each species that can create light, distress signals have a completely different flash pattern than regular patterns.

Fireflies spend most of their lives in the larva stage, which can range from a few months to two or more years. The egg, pupa and adult stages are all typically two to four weeks.

Fireflies make a defensive chemical that causes predators to spit them back out if eaten, with spiders being the only exception.

Dobberstine said the fireflies at the Texas Chenier Plain Refuge are “pristine.”

The Anahuac refuge has five different firefly species, including Bill’s hitch, Photuris billbrowni; Davis’s oddball, Pleotomus davisii; snappy singles, Photuris frontalis; two-step flasher firefly, Photinus dimissus; and spring treetop flasher, Pyractomena borealis.

The Bill’s hitch has quick paired flashes in green or yellow light. They are typically seen in May.

The Davis’s oddball males do not flash, and the females are glow worms. The larvae for both genders glow green and, in this stage, have been spotted from April to October.

Goforth described the Davis’s oddball as “stars on the ground.” since the females cannot fly.

Snappy singles have a single yellow or white color flash with quick intervals and are typically seen in April. In large groups, these fireflies can synchronize their flashing.

The two-step flasher firefly has a quick double-flash in yellow or white color and has been spotted by the Glow Patrol in June and August. Because these species tend to live in forestry areas near water, they are near threatened.

The spring treetop flasher can be compared to a fire ember slowly burning as they have a single slow flash with about a three second interval. Their flash appears yellow or amber in color.

Adults are typically seen between February and March, larvae are seen from October to February and pupae are seen from January to February.

“Seeing the fireflies and glowing, even though it’s 100 degrees and 90% humidity, I still have fun every time,” Dobberstine said.

Since the Glow Patrol began, the firefly watch program was taken over by the Xerces Society in a collaborative effort with IUCN SCC Firefly Specialist Group and New Mexico BioPark Society.

People from all over the country collect data and enter it into the Firefly Atlas for research.

If you are interested in learning more or participating in gathering data, visit https://www.fireflyatlas.org/.