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Why fireflies are only spotted in summer and where lightning bugs live the rest of the year
Firefly fans who’d like to see lightning bugs year-round are out of luck.
The insect, which is a type of beetle, is usually seen only between spring and summer, with different species emerging at different times. The first fireflies of the season come out later in the year as you move farther north.
The fireflies people see glowing and flying around are adults, said Sara Lewis, author of “Silent Sparks: The Wondrous World of Fireflies.” Their time aboveground before dying is brief, with fireflies actually spending the bulk of their lives living underground.
“One of the very surprising things about fireflies is that the ones that we’re used to seeing — the very charming, ethereal adults that are flying around in summertime — they have a backstory,” Lewis said. “They are really just the back end of a firefly life cycle.”
The firefly life cycle
During their brief time as adults, fireflies are focused on reproduction. Some are so focused on it that they don’t even eat, according to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.
Getty Images/iStockphoto
Most of the firefly species in the U.S. — there are around 170, according to Lewis — lay eggs in soil, moss or at the base of plants. They look for areas that are moist because the eggs are tiny, soft and dry out easily. It takes about two weeks for the firefly larvae to hatch.
“If they dry out during that period, they’re dead,” Lewis said.
The eggs are about the size of a pinhead, according to Candace Fallon, senior conservation biologist at the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation, said.
After the eggs hatch, the larvae burrow into the ground, where they spend the next one to two years, depending on the species. After the larvae stage, there’s a brief stage as pupae before the adults emerge.
Growing up underground
Though juvenile fireflies glow, they’re very different from the adults people are used to seeing.
“Adult fireflies are really just the tip of the firefly iceberg,” Lewis said.
While adults aboveground are focused on reproduction, fireflies are similar to teenagers in their juvenile stage: focused on eating and growing, Lewis said. They eat snails, slugs and earthworms. They have sharp jaws and inject paralyzing neurotoxins into their prey.
“The larvae are incredibly voracious predators, they’re really fierce,” Lewis said.
When cold weather arrives, the larvae burrow down below frost level and don’t move around until it warms up in the spring, when they burrow back up again, Lewis said.
The larvae also don’t look like the adult fireflies people are used to seeing; they look more similar to pill bugs, commonly known as roly poly.
After the larva stage, fireflies have a short stage as a pupa before emerging as adults.
The next generation of fireflies
Adult fireflies in the southern U.S. start to emerge in March, April and May, while they begin coming out in June and July further north, Fallon said.
There are three general types of fireflies in the U.S., Fallon said. There are daytime dark fireflies, which are active during the day and use pheromones rather than lights to communicate. There are also glowworms. Male glowworms, which generally don’t light up, have enormous eyes. They look for flightless females giving off dim light on the ground.
Haoxiang Yang via Getty Images
The there’s the flashing species, which is the kind most people recognize.
“Those flashes are directly related to courtship in the adults. Each species has a species-specific flash pattern it uses,” Fallon said. “Typically the males will be flying around flashing a specific single, searching for a female. And if a female is interested, she’ll have her own specific flash that she’ll flash back to this male.”
When not searching for a mate and focusing on reproducing, the fireflies might rest in the crevices of bark or in vegetation. They’ll hang out in areas where they can get some protection from predators and in moist areas.
Threats facing fireflies
Fireflies need moisture in each of their life cycles, Lewis said. It’s not just the eggs that can dry out; larvae and pupae can also dry out and die if there’s not enough moisture. Drought is one of the most serious threats faced by fireflies.
About 10% of the firefly species in the U.S. are not doing well, Lewis said. Some of the firefly species most vulnerable to extinction need very specific habitats to survive.
Light pollution is also a threat to fireflies. It can prevent male and female fireflies from finding each other so they can mate, reducing the population of the next generation of fireflies.
National Park Service
“Love can be hard to find for even the brightest of fireflies,” according to the Fish and Wildlife Service. “Even the interfering light of a full moon can outshine their visual morse code, making it impossible for males and females to recognize each other. Light pollution from towns, factories and roads have been seriously killing the buzz for these insects”
Overuse of pesticides is also impacting lightning bug species everywhere. Fallon advises being conscientious of the fireflies when taking care of lawns. She suggests mowing less often or leaving the grass taller. If possible, leave some corner of the yard a bit wild so the fireflies — eggs, larvae, pupae and adults — have a safe space.
The advice applies year round, not just in the spring and summer when flashes of light are visible.
“So many just people just think about fireflies when they’re these flashing adults for a few weeks in the summer, but the reality is that they’re present all year long, we’re just not noticing them or seeing them,” Fallon said.
CBS News
After Tyre Nichols’ fatal beating, Memphis officer texted photo of bloodied man to ex-girlfriend, she testifies
A former Memphis police officer charged in the fatal beating of Tyre Nichols sent his ex-girlfriend a photo of the badly injured man on the night he was punched, kicked and hit with a police baton following a traffic stop, according to trial testimony Wednesday.
Brittany Leake, a Memphis officer and Demetrius Haley’s former girlfriend, testified during the criminal trial that she was on the phone with Haley when officers pulled Nichols over for a traffic stop. She said she heard a “commotion,” including verbal orders for someone to give officers his hands.
The call ended, but Haley later texted the photo in a group chat comprising Haley, Leake and her godsister, she testified. Prosecutors displayed the photo for the jury. It showed Nichols with his eyes closed, on the ground with what appeared to be blood near his mouth and his hands behind his back.
Leake said that when she saw the photo, her reaction was: “Oh my God, he definitely needs to go to the Med.”
The Med is shorthand for Memphis’ trauma hospital.
The fatal beating, caught on police bodycams and street surveillance cameras, has sparked protests and calls for police reform. Officers said they pulled over Nichols for reckless driving, but Memphis’ police chief said there was no evidence to substantiate that claim.
Haley, Tadarrius Bean and Justin Smith are on trial after pleading not guilty to charges that they deprived Nichols of his civil rights through excessive force and failure to intervene, and obstructed justice through witness tampering. Their trial began Sept. 9 and is expected to run three to four weeks.
George Walker IV / AP
The Memphis Police Department fired the three men, along with Emmitt Martin III and Desmond Mills Jr., after Nichols’ death. The beating was caught on police video, which was released publicly. The officers were later indicted on the federal charges. Martin and Mills have taken plea deals.
During her testimony Wednesday, Leake said she deleted the photo after she saw it and that sending such a photo is against police policy.
“I wasn’t offended, but it was difficult to look at,” she said.
Leake said Haley had sent her photos before of drugs, and of a person who had been injured in a car accident.
Earlier Wednesday, Martin was on the witness stand for a third day. Defense attorneys tried to show inconsistencies between Martin’s statements to investigators and his court testimony. Martin acknowledged lying about what happened to Memphis Police Department internal investigators, to try to cover up and “justify what I did.”
But Martin said he told the truth to FBI investigators after he pleaded guilty in August, including statements about feeling pressure on his duty belt where his gun was located during the traffic stop, but not being able to see if Nichols was trying to get his gun. Martin has testified that he said “let go of my gun” during the traffic stop.
Martin Zummach, the attorney for Justin Smith, asked Martin if he knew of any reasons why Nichols did not simply say, “I give up.”
“He’s out of it,” Martin said. “Disoriented.”
Martin testified that the situation escalated quickly when Haley pulled his gun and violently yanked Nichols from his car, using expletives and failing to tell Nichols why he had been pulled over and removed from the vehicle.
“He never got a chance to comply,” Martin said.
Nichols, who was Black, was pepper sprayed and hit with a stun gun during the traffic stop, but ran away, police video shows. The five officers, who also are Black, then beat him about a block from his home, as he called out for his mother.
Video shows the officers milling about and talking as Nichols struggled with his injuries. Nichols died Jan. 10, 2023, three days after the beating.
An autopsy report shows Nichols – the father of a boy who is now 7 – died from blows to the head. The report describes brain injuries, and cuts and bruises on his head and elsewhere on his body.
Jesse Guy testified that he was working as a paramedic for the Memphis Fire Department the night of the beating. He arrived at the location after two emergency medical technicians, Robert Long and JaMichael Sandridge.
Guy said he was not told about the medical problems Nichols had experienced before he arrived, and that Nichols was injured, seated on the ground and unresponsive.
Nichols had no pulse and was not breathing, and it “felt like he was lifeless,” Guy said.
In the ambulance, Guy performed CPR and provided mechanical ventilation, and Nichols had a pulse by the time he arrived at the hospital, the paramedic said.
Guy said Long and Sandridge did not say if they had checked Nichols’ pulse and heart rate, and they did not report if they had given him oxygen. When asked by one of Bean’s lawyers whether that information would have been helpful in treating Nichols, Guy said yes.
Long and Sandridge were fired for violating fire department policies after Nichols died. They have not been criminally charged.
The five officers also have been charged with second-degree murder in state court, where they pleaded not guilty. Mills and Martin are expected to change their pleas.
Federal prosecutors have previously recommended a 40-year sentence for Martin. A date has not been set in state court yet.
Nichols worked for FedEx, and he enjoyed skateboarding and photography. The city of Sacramento, where Nichols grew up, named a skatepark in his honor. “Tyre fell in love with skateboarding at a young age and it wasn’t long before it became a part of his lifestyle,” states the resolution approved by the city council. He had a tattoo of his mother’s name.
“Tyre Nichols’ family have been praying for justice and accountability from the very beginning of this tragedy,” Ben Crump and Antonio Romanucci, the civil rights attorneys representing Nichols’ family, said in a statement when the trial began.
Boeing’s CEO said Wednesday that the company will begin furloughing “a large number” of employees to conserve cash during the strike by union machinists that began last week.
Chief Executive Kelly Ortberg said the people who would be required to take time off without pay starting in coming days include executives, managers and other employees based in the U.S.
“While this is a tough decision that impacts everybody, it is in an effort to preserve our long-term future and help us navigate through this very difficult time,” Ortberg said in a company-wide message to staff.
Boeing didn’t say how many people will face rolling furloughs, but the number is expected to run into the tens of thousands. The aerospace giant had 171,000 employees at the start of the year.
About 33,000 Boeing factory workers in the Pacific Northwest began a strike Friday after rejecting a proposal to raise pay by 25% over four years. They want raises of at least 40%, the return of a traditional pension plan and other improvements in the contract offer they voted down.
Scott Brauer / Bloomberg via Getty Images
The strike is halting production of several airplane models including Boeing’s best-selling plane, the 737 Max. The company gets more than half of the purchase price when new planes are delivered to buyers, so the strike will quickly hurt Boeing’s cash flow.
Ortberg said selected employees will be furloughed for one week every four weeks while retaining their benefits. The CEO and other senior executives will take pay cuts during the duration of the strike, he said, without stating how deep the cuts will be.
All work related to safety, quality, customer support and certification of new planes will continue during the furloughs, he said, including production of 787 Dreamliner jets, which are built by nonunion workers in South Carolina.
Ortberg said in a memo to employees that the company is talking to the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers about a new contract agreement that could be ratified.
“However, with production paused across many key programs in the Pacific Northwest, our business faces substantial challenges and it is important that we take difficult steps to preserve cash and ensure that Boeing is able to successfully recover,” he said.
Boeing’s chief financial officer warned employees earlier this week that temporary layoffs were possible.
The company, which is based in Arlington, Virginia, but has most of its commercial-airplanes business located in the Pacific Northwest, is also cutting spending on suppliers, freezing hiring and eliminating most travel.
Despite two full days of talks assisted by the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, the union said Wednesday that no resolution had been reached and no additional negotiations were scheduled, according to CBS Seattle affiliate KIRO-TV.
Striking workers are picketing at several locations in the Seattle area, Oregon and California. The union, which recommended the offer that members later rejected by a 96% vote, is surveying the workers to learn what they want in a new contract. The union’s last strike at Boeing, in 2008, lasted about two months.
If the walkout doesn’t end soon, Boeing’s credit rating could be downgraded to non-investment or junk status, which would make borrowing more expensive. Shortly after the walkout began Friday, Moody’s put Boeing on review for a possible downgrade, and Fitch said a strike longer than two weeks would make a downgrade more likely.
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