By:
Cindy Spence
Sources:
James Lloyd (352) 392-1901, ext. 124
GAINESVILLE---If
you want to know where all the fireflies have gone, the world's leading
authority
on them has some advice: Look for them.
But you may have to look farther than your back yard.
University
of Florida entomologist James Lloyd has spent his life "chasing fireflies,"
as he calls his
work,
and can tell you where to find dozens of species, including one named after
him.
Here in
the nation's Firefly Belt, from the Big Bend area of North Florida to the
Okefenokee
Swamp
in South Georgia, there are plenty of fireflies to see. So why is firefly
chasing becoming
an endangered
rite of childhood?
Lloyd says
there are many reasons people perceive that fireflies are vanishing, and
it's possible
that none
of them have to do with the actual disappearance of fireflies.
In an increasingly
urban world, there is more light pollution. Reluctant to compete with street
lamps,
automobile headlights and security lights, fireflies sometimes flee suburbia.
And then
there are cultural changes. On long summer evenings of yesteryear, parents
and children
were outside
in the vanishing hours of daylight, sharing stories with neighbors over
the back fence,
chatting
on front porches. Children ran free, chasing fireflies and collecting them
in empty Mason
jars to
put by their beds.
Today, people are more apt to be indoors at dusk, locked behind doors and watching television.
City dwellers
with more natural lawns may see fireflies from time to time and there are
plenty to
be seen
in rural areas. Lloyd says fireflies like minimally disturbed habitats
like woodlands and
marshes.
As nocturnal
as Count Dracula but much more benign, Lloyd waits for sunset then turns
such
remote
habitats into classrooms for Advanced Biology with Fireflies, one of the
most popular
classes
in UF's Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences. He thinks it is these
firefly safaris in the
dark that
prompt the waiting list for the class each semester.
"I don't
bore them with lectures," Lloyd said. "I just chase fireflies and with
these honors
students
I have a lot of good company."
The students
gather as dusk falls and head to Lloyd's tried and true firefly-viewing
venues. Most
say they
take the class because of Lloyd's reputation for making learning fun and
for a chance to
chase
lightningbugs and take part in a summer ritual as old as time.
Lloyd has
studied fireflies for 35 years and said there is little hard data to show
that fireflies are
vanishing.
"Yet, from
circumstantial evidence, there's no reason to believe they haven't dwindled,
with
urbanization,
pollution and lower water tables," Lloyd said.
There are
species that thrive in disturbed spaces, he says, but many do not, and
it is diversity of
the species
that is threatened.
"Possibly some species are gone that we didn't even know we had," Lloyd said.
The chemical
that makes fireflies light up has a medical use and has even prompted harvesting
of
fireflies
in the Midwest. Although they have few natural enemies, human enemies who
are paid
for each
firefly tail probably have made a huge dent in some populations, Lloyd
said. One woman
reportedly
is responsible for capturing a million fireflies single-handedly.
Firefly
tails contain the chemical, luciferin, and the enzyme, luciferase. These
molecules help in
coding
genes, testing food for bacterial contamination and measuring effectiveness
of some drugs
in treating
tumors, among other applications.
In harvesting
fireflies for medical research, some rarer species may be inadvertently
harmed,
Lloyd
says. For protection, they may have to rely on the goodwill of generations
with fond
memories
of chasing lightningbugs on summer evenings.
"People seem to really like these things, kind of like they do dinosaurs," Lloyd said.
"Imagine,
before the days of electricity, how bright the flash of a firefly was.
It must have been
really
mysterious," Lloyd said. "These little insects are truly amazing."