Where did all the lightning bugs (fireflies) go this summer?

[mirime]

I've noticed we don't seem to have any lightening bugs, which is very unusual. I think we had them earlier in the summer. I sure do miss them. Anyone else have the same problem?

We had ours earlier (by a good month), too...and they left earlier too.

 

[chickaD]

So, Mirime, did you have weird weather this summer...anything that may have thrown them off, like a cooler rainy summer? This is the first year I can remember having this happen.

 

[patandchickens]

I do not think your lightning bugs are likely to be *leaving* so much as simply ceasing to stay alive. (And I am not sure how unusual it really is for there to be few in August-Sept -- when I was a kid in PA, and certainly up here in ON now, they are really more of an early-midsummer type of thing).

They lay eggs in damp places (e.g. edges of ponds, or edges of reliably damp ditches). The eggs hatch into larvae that are sort of along the basic general lines of ladybug larvae if you know what they look like - although the larvae are luminescent at night if you happen to be looking in the right place at the right time. (I have only ever seen this once, along the shore of a farm pond at night from a canoe). Some (all?) north american firefly species spend the bulk of two years as larvae, pupating and metamorphosing to the adult form in the early summer of their second year. They really do not spend much time as adults -- like a month or six weeks.

So it is quite likely that what you are seeing is normal, or within the range of normal variation given the vicissitudes of weather. I would not worry unless the PEAK 'population' of visible fireflies were unusually low.

Pat

 

[chickaD]

That's really interesting, Pat - thanks! "Moist R Us" could be the name of our yard, surrounded by water on 3 sides (swamp, ditch & stream, brook). The spooky thing is that we truly didn't have our fireflies at all during July, part of what would be peak. We were so busy trying to survive drowning from all the daily thunderstorms (oops, I need to pay a visit to your Thread to whine about the weather ) and vacuuming out our flooding basement that we didn't focus on the lack of fireflies until now.

 

[Chiefs Mess]

I read (well really scanned the article) one Sunday. It was in the magazine that is with the Sunday Paper. The magazine was Parade. The article was about the decline in Lighting Bugs aka Fire Flys. Now I wish I read it.

 

[simple life]

We have only seen a handful this summer, and the kids make a point of looking for them so it wasn't that we just didn't notice them we just couldn't find them. So now that you mention it, strange...

 

[mirime]

So, Mirime, did you have weird weather this summer...anything that may have thrown them off, like a cooler rainy summer? This is the first year I can remember having this happen.

It was super-wet in May/June then super dry the rest of the season. How about you?

 

[chickaD]

Mirime, that's funny! Our weather happened just the opposite of yours, as wet/dry periods go. Everything was an extreme - too much dry, then pounded to the flooding point with pouring rain every day mid-summer.

Can you picture little wrinkled lightning bugs, from soaking in all that water?

Oh brother, I just realized I've been spelling it wrong: S/B lightning bugs, not LIGHTENING!!! Maybe that's our problem: if they were "lightening" they just got lighter and lighter until they vanished clear out of sight.

 

[okiemommy]

We have seen only a few lighting bugs this summer also

 

[patandchickens]

FWIW, when we were visiting my parents in SE PA (just north of Philly) at the end of June, I was struck by how *many* lightning bugs there were. "At least as many as when I was a kid" was my thought at the time. I can't directly compare it with other recent years, though, since we more typically make our summer visit in August by which time few are left.

Seemed like there were maybe not so many, at their peak, up here this year... BUT it was a terribly dry spring and early summer (with weird temperatures too).

Dunno,

Pat