Hacker News Reader

Comment by jt2190 | Hacker News Reader

> People can help with firefly conservation by avoiding pesticides, [Marten Edwards, professor of biology at Muhlenberg College] said, and turning off outdoor lights, which confuse the bugs’ mating habits.

> Another way to help, he said, is to planting trees and native grasses, and to allow log and leaf litter to accumulate.

> “They prefer longer grass and they like to be in the leaf litter from the leaves that have fallen from last year” …

View on HN

And watch where you step! Females stay on the ground and males fly around to find them. There are very few females for each male, so if you capture or kill a firefly on the ground, that has an outsized effect on their reproduction.

Use red outdoor lights instead of white to prevent them from getting confused. Absolutely turn off those huge floodlights people seem to love keeping on all night.

I am very grateful that I can add "don't you like fireflies?" to my list of reasons people should turn off their floodlights.

>People can help with firefly conservation by avoiding pesticides

I remember in the 90s, you'd be walking home and every lawn pretty much had signs to not go on the grass or you'd get a chemical rash/burn and have to go to the township hospital. (After being chewed out by a series of Moms for being dumb and/or rude.)

Mine family was one of the few that didn't, but mine was the parent that got cancer, it's one of the reasons I believe in universal healthcare.

I've started seeing those signs again, but now they proudly proclaim that whatever they sprayed is "organic". (Same warnings about not getting near it, etc...)

I live near Muhlenberg, oddly enough, and I have a lot of fireflies in my yard.

edit: Here's some that my daughter captured. Don't worry, we released them! https://i.imgur.com/1ol4d6C.mp4

I was shocked when I saw them on holiday in Slovakia once. I really thought they were a USA or a jungle thing, had no idea we had them in Europe.

I worked with a guy from Germany about 20 years ago, before it was as easy find this sort of information online. I asked him if they had fireflies in Germany and he kind of scoffed and told me "Of course we have them over there!"

He didn't know, at the time, that they were extremely rare starting somewhere west of the Mississippi river.

Are you saying they're rare west of the Mississippi or East of it? They were thick in the Midwest until recently.

Somewhere west of the Mississippi. I had also read "western Kansas" was the point at which they drop off considerably.

I suppose it's west of the Mississippi, but it's a long ways west. I'd imagine it's around the 100th meridian then. That goes through the middle of Kansas and is where you start to expect to see more western species as you travel west past it and vice versa.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com