Have you seen them anywhere?
SOS, Mayday, Alert to all. Miniature, innocent victims of the night have disappeared from the face of the earth! When was the last time you saw them?
Yes, we are talking about fireflies! Do you remember those? The small creatures that produce light in their bodies that you probably used to chase at night at time point during your life, before the Moon came up.
They live on all continents except Antarctica. In our climate, there are two types: Midsummer firefly (Lampyris noctiluca) and Small midsummer firefly (Lampyris splendidula).
Generally speaking, males have wings and do not produce light; females light up but have no wings. This might not be true for all subscenes. Nonetheless, mating takes place by recognition of light signals of females by males.
Bioluminescence is here in the service of the preservation of the species. No light can be seen during the day, only the night remains when partners can be found, recognized, and then they create offspring.
Light is the result of a complex biochemical process in which over 95% of energy is converted into visible light, a negligible part of this conversion is read as a heat source.
No light source made by human technology is even close to the energy efficiency of these amazing creatures!
Fireflies mate at night, male and female playing an obsessively lascivious game under the stars.
But once again man, with his carelessness, ignorance and predatory behavior went too hard on artificial night – over-illuminating everything and everyone.
Due to light pollution, the Milky Way has disappeared from the firmament, the less bright stars have disappeared, the real, primordial night has disappeared. Even in rural areas there is no real night-darkness anymore.
The natural environment of fireflies has disappeared. Rural and suburban settlements abound with new housing units intended for tourism. Almost without exception, all of them have unnecessary decorative lighting.
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When night is turned into day, fireflies can’t find their partners and the species is dying out. The lack of a natural “day-night” cycle has a destructive effect on many other animal species (and humans!).
Fireflies cannot defeat human greed and ignorance. The next time you take a walk in the countryside at night, pay attention to how much light we unnecessarily and harmfully scatter around.
Let’s face it, artificial night lighting is a civilizational necessity. Night lighting must be everywhere where it is needed and to the extent that it is needed. But no more than that!
Therefore, we ourselves, by doing something that will not decommodify us just a bit, can bring back the fireflies and the Night.
LET’S REMEMBER: Just one non-ecological lighting fixture during one single night causes the death of four hundred (400+/-15%) living beings!).
Let’s not be a part of this genocidal biocide anymore.
Now that you’ve learned this, try to spread the knowledge and set an example by being a responsible night-light user. Fireflies will come back to light up the way, just how gracious Mother Nature intended.
Did you know that here at OSR you can name stars?
