Heike firefly
The Heike firefly is a small brown beetle that can make light. On summer nights it flashes yellow lights over rice fields in Japan and Korea. Its babies grow up underwater, which is very unusual for a firefly.
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Fun facts
Its larvae have gills like a fish and crawl along the bottom of the water.
The larvae and grown-ups glow yellow, and even its eggs and pupae glow with a dim green light.
Males and females talk with flashes. The female's flash leads the male to her leaf.
In the north of Japan it flashes more slowly, more than one second between flashes. Elsewhere it flashes about twice a second.
Scientists read its whole genome, the instruction book inside its cells, in 2018.
Most asked questions about Heike firefly
?Why do Heike fireflies glow?
They flash lights to find each other. Males and females answer each other's flashes.
?Where do Heike fireflies live?
In Japan, Korea and eastern Russia. Their larvae live in rice fields.
?How big is a Heike firefly?
It is about 6 to 10 millimetres long. The females are a little bigger.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Aquatica lateralis
- Named by
- Motschulsky, 1860
- Group
- Beetles
- Family
- Lampyridae
- Classification
- Insecta > Coleoptera > Lampyridae
- Lives on
- Asia
- Also known as
- Heike-botaru
Where the facts come from
- Aquatica lateralis (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
- Picture by yellow_bird_woodstock ใใ https://www.flickr.com/photos/yellow_bird_woodstock/. CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same picture.
If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at hello@bugwiki.app and we will fix it.
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