What makes fireflies glow and what do they eat?
It’s a sure sign of summer at Ask Yahoo! when firefly questions start flickering in. This week we netted two and decided to answer them together. We typed “fireflies” into Yahoo!’s search box and turned up a Fireflies category (under Insects > Beetles) — a handpicked collection of firefly information from diverse web sites. At the Firefly Files we learned that there are over 2,000 species of these bioluminescent, nocturnal beetles. A member of the order Coleoptera, in the family Lampyridae, the firefly (aka lightning bug) produces a “cold light” in a specialized organ on the underside of its abdomen. There, a substance called luciferin reacts with oxygen, which is breathed in through the abdominal trachea. It appears that male fireflies’
