Fireflies are everywhere!Fireflies originated in England, but they soon spread around the world to every continent apart from the polar regions, the main reasons of the spread was due to the cold temperature that England reached.
Don’t go too far to look for some fireflies. Fireflies have habitats in caves, damp grass , beside streams and in rivers, as they are nocturnal they will like dark places.
They look like beetles. Fireflies are actually not flies, they are actually beetles. Fireflies are black or brown and have bright colored markings. The male is 10-12 mm long and females are 15-20 mm long. To make the glowing light on their underside, the firefly has a chemical in their body, that when mixed with oxygen, makes the glow you see.
The way they travel is simple. The firefly moves by either flying or crawling.
The long life-cycle. Fireflies live up to 1 year 5 weeks ( average) from egg to adult, the life cycle goes : Egg; 2 weeks, Larva; longer than a year, Pupa; 3 weeks, Adults; 30 days.
The main target of the Adult firefly is to find a mate. They will do so by flashing their own unique light pattern which will hopefully attract a mate. However, sometimes the females will falsely attract a male, and when he arrives she will eat him.
The buggy diet of a firefly is odd. The larva of a firefly eat the most as they need to fatten up to survive.The diet of an adult is slimy, they eat slugs and snails, they firstly find their prey, then they bite into the prey, injection poison which paralyzes it and starts to digest it making it a thick soup, then they suck it up through their jaws. On rare occasion fireflies will eat nectar.
In my opinion I think that fire flies are the most incredible beetles I have ever learnt and written about. I would love to see some in the future.