After clicking on today's hot search of "5cm giant fireflies appear in Sichuan", everyone's reaction lit up the large field of concave eye fireflies Rhagophthalmus ohbai male insects vs female insects

This morning there is a Weibo hot search "5cm giant fireflies appear in Sichuan", after clicking on, I found that many Weibo netizens' comments lit up, because everyone's comments are like this:

Image source: Weibo netizens

such:

And something like this:

Why is the reaction so strange, because this firefly looks like this:

Image source: See watermark

The duration of darkness goes like this:

Emmmmm, this big meat worm is indeed very different from the appearance of the firefly in everyone's impression, so everyone can't help but wonder, who is it?

Originally, this female firefly was collected by the Chengdu Huaxi Entomological Museum in Zhao Gongshan, Dujiangyan, Chengdu, and according to the curator Zhao Li, the worm was a narrow-edged large concave eye firefly Rhagophthalmus giganteus.

+ Fireflies +

Impression of fireflies small cute

Our common fireflies refer to the Coleoptera firefly insects, currently known in the world more than 2,000 species, China distributed more than 150 kinds, common such as red-breasted fireflies, window-breasted fireflies, Beijing fireflies and so on.

Red-breasted fireflies

Many species of fireflies emit light in all insect states. Lo and behold, the pale yellow eggs glow faintly at night, and the stars are dotted, which is very wonderful.

The larval stage has a unique appearance and some similarities to trilobites. Not only is it not good-looking, but it is also fierce and unusual, and likes to prey on snails, snails, earthworms and some small insects (such as ants, termites).

Larval fireflies also glow, the main purpose of which is to warn predators that their meat is not tasty and may be highly poisonous, and that insects that have never seen the world are likely to be frightened by it.

Fireflies will dig holes in the dirt to pupate before pupating, and then molt and enter the pupal stage, but even if they don't eat or move, they can glow and defend themselves.

After feathering, adults will crawl out of the earth layer to find mates, and their adult stage is very short, usually only 2 to 3 weeks.

In the last limited life of the fireflies, the male fireflies will flash their lights to find objects and multiply. Males die quickly after mating, and females end their lives after laying their eggs.

+ Concave Eye Firefly +

Fireflies in the narrow sense refer only to fluorescence insects, while fireflies in the broad sense refer to fireflies, including fireflies, light fireflies, and concave eye fireflies... The 5 cm giant fireflies found this time are indeed concave eye fireflies.

Concave eye fireflies, also known as female fireflies, as the name suggests, will emit light brighter than the males of common fireflies, which only females emit light.

Image source: www.researchgate.net

<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="68" > large-field concave-eyed fireflies Rhagophthalmus ohbai male vs female</h1>

Concave eye fireflies male and female shape, males with wings, no luminous devices; females are wingless, argillary chrysalis pupae of large flesh insects, its body up to more than 30 luminous points, night viewing like a string of LED lights, very spectacular.

Watch me change... Lit up

When the female is courting, she will come to the flat and open part of the ground, hold her abdomen high and glow to attract the male to mate:

However, because the appearance of male and female is very different, the picture during mating does not look like love and more like fighting:

Image source: Taken by Vor Yiu

After mating, the female will burrow into the soil to lay eggs, and after laying the eggs, the body curls into a "C" shape to protect the eggs in the abdomen, and more interestingly, their luminous form at this time will be different from before mating. After mating and spawning, these "lights" all come on, playing a protective and vigilant role.

Image source: zenodo.org

Concave-eyed fireflies have a strange feeding habit, feeding on horses that look difficult to swallow, and are very brave, able to roll and fight with prey that is several times larger than themselves. Because he likes to prey on Malu, he also has the title of "Malu Killer".

In the third section of the second season of "Earth Pulse", "Rainforest", there is a wonderful scene of large concave eye fireflies preying on Malu, and when they find Malu's tracks, they will also "turn off the lights" to avoid exposing their whereabouts, which is very interesting.

The concave-eyed fireflies emit light by the luciferin and luciferase enzymes in the luminescence apparatus, and the main purpose of the luminescence is to attract males to cross tails and reproduce offspring, while warning predators against predators.

So people are ugly, but they really are

Fireflies (generalized)

However, after clicking into the hot search, everyone felt

Resources:

Weibo (weibo.cn)

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/The-luminous-glowworm-beetle-Rhagophthalmus-ohbai-of-the-Phengodidae-A-A-beetle-form_fig5_232693646

https://zenodo.org/record/214808#.YNLoxGgzbZs

Two new species of Rhagophthalmus Motschulsky (Coleoptera:

Rhagophthalmidae) from Yunnan, south‐western China, with notes on known species

Source: Google see watermark

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