Glow-worms

Also known as lighting beetles, shineworms, glassworms or fireworms.

The glow-worm probably excites as much interest in poets and scientists as it does in the field naturalist – and we all have a little of each attitude!

Glow-worm
© photograph by Matt Stribley

Some scientific names are descriptive, easy to pronounce and even musical – try Lampyris noctiluca. Gilbert White described how the female “lights her amorous fire", for this is not a reflective light but one that glows from within her body by chemical reaction – and can be switched on and off at will (it is "lights out" whilst they are mating!). The males, the larvae and even freshly laid eggs glow slightly, but it is the female who is “the earth-born star” as described by Wordsworth. Her eyes are small, whilst those of the males are large, better to see her, and whereas she is wingless, he is able to fly to where she beckons.  Unfortunately he is often duped by the artificial lights with which we counter darkness, and this is given as one of the reasons why glow-worms have become less common.

Glow-worms can still be found, especially in southern Britain, but in fewer places, as many areas have been "developed", and in fewer numbers for the reason given and the use of insecticides. The coast is the best place, often on banks where the female can turn up the luminous tail segments to best effect.

Glow-worm adults seem to take little or no food, but the larvae are carnivorous, preying on snails, tracking them by their slime trail. The molluscs are digested externally as a secretion is used which liquefies the body, which can then be sucked up.

The Environmental Records Centre for Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly (ERCCIS) is always pleased to receive records of glow-worms, with the basic information of where seen, how many and by whom. Such records are also made available to the current national recording scheme so that a general distribution map can be produced.

Stella Turk

Classification:  

Cornwall's Nature Introduction Marine life Mammals .. Bats .. Bottlenose dolphins .. Grey seals .. Hedgehogs .. Otters .. Watervoles Wildlife gardening Invertebrates Herptofauna .. Reptiles .. Amphibians Geology Slugs and snails SEARCH . . . . . . . . .