On the evening of September 1, Yue Shiyao and Zhang Qian, students of the insect resource breeding base of Leshan Normal University, found several special "fireflies" near the laboratory. Unlike the common fireflies that flicker and disappear when they glow, the tails of these "fireflies" are in a continuous glowing state.
Female adult worms are multi-point luminous
According to the identification of Professor Cao Chengquan, the head of the laboratory, these distinctive "fireflies" belong to the same family of "concave eye fireflies" as the "female fluorescent fireflies" found in Tiantai Mountain, Qingcheng Mountain and Panda Valley this summer, and the specific species have not yet been identified.
"Broadly speaking, such insects can be called fireflies, but they actually belong to the concave eye firefly family, and 'female fluorescent fireflies' are not strictly scientific names, just because their adults only emit light from females, while male adults do not emit light and are not easy to be found, so everyone habitually calls them 'female fluorescent fireflies'." Cao Chengquan introduced that the existence of "concave eye fireflies" has long been found at the foot of Mount Emei and the campus of Leshan Normal University, but it has not yet attracted widespread attention, and the discovery of Tiantai Mountain and Qingcheng Mountain this year has made it an "Internet celebrity".
The larvae emit light only on the tail of the worm's body
It is understood that the "concave eye fireflies" found in the school of Leshan Normal University this time are all larvae. In the larval stage, the tail of both female and male insects will continue to glow, and only female insects emit light in adulthood, and expand to multiple points of light throughout the body. Adult males do not emit light, the compound eye is concave from the middle, and the lower half of the compound eye is used to receive the female insect luminescence and then courtmate, which is also the origin of the name "concave eye firefly".
Male adults
"The average firefly female and male adult insect emits light mainly for courtship mating, and the female dies soon after mating and laying eggs." Cao Chengquan said, "But the female adults of the 'concave eye firefly' do not die immediately after laying eggs, they have multiple points of light glowing all over the body to warn predators, the body curls up to protect their eggs, and will die after many days after the eggs hatch safely, full of 'maternal love', which is a typical species of maternal love education." ”
Fireflies, as extremely picky "spirits" who are extremely picky about the environment, have now become less and less common, and the rarer "concave-eyed fireflies" have been found in Leshan many times, which also confirms the good natural ecology of Leshan from a biological point of view. In the next step, the insect resource research and development base of the School of Life Sciences of Leshan Normal University will conduct further comprehensive research on the "concave eye firefly", and plans to explore the industrial development path in the form of artificial breeding, and excavate the ecological value and economic value of the insect.
Source: Infinite Leshan