By Burt Glover

Fireflies were such a magical part of my childhood. Rising from the ground on summer evenings, they seemed as constant a presence as the moon and stars. As with so many other things in my life, sometimes I sit with my coffee cup and wonder — where did they go? 

There are 170+ species of fireflies, or lightning bugs, in North America. Fireflies are actually beetles, and they begin their lives as eggs (many of which glow) deposited on, or in the ground underneath leaf litter and around rotting wood . Upon hatching into larvae, (many of which also glow), they feed on slugs, snails, and worms, as well as other insects. Depending on the species, the larval stage lasts from several weeks up to two years. Finally, one day, when the warm summer days begin to permeate the land, they pupate for a week or two, then emerge as adults, residing among the leaf litter. When the sun goes down, the fireflies begin their ascent into the skies, en masse, flashing their cool green-yellow lights, looking to attract a special female firefly, so that the whole cycle might begin again. Adults live for up to a month, at most.

Some of my earliest memories involve collecting lightning bugs in old pickle jars with my brothers. The lightning bugs would arise by the thousands, it seems, from beneath the camellias and azaleas in our yard. We always anticipated the emergence of the lightning bugs in summer — a habit I continued when I relocated to Asheville. It was there that I moved into an old farmstead, complete with an old barn and chicken coop. The fireflies I encountered along a hedgerow beside an old field were unbelievable. After sunset, seemingly millions of them would rise up into the tall trees, blinking all the while. At some point, they seemed to become coordinated — not flashing all at once, but more like a neon sign, with the light traveling in jagged lines. How was that possible?

A few years later, I moved to a mountaintop cabin near Saluda, NC situated among a vast acreage of woods. Without a field and a hedgerow, come summertime, there was no awe-inspiring display of fireflies. I contented myself with looking out at the lights of Tryon, NC and beyond, to the lights of upper South Carolina. 

One evening, I took a walk in the low-growing plants in the woods, and I discovered lights! Many of them — small, blue-white lights meandering around, a foot or so above the ground. They did not flash, but were lit continuously. I found myself imagining small woodland sprites, traveling through the woods carrying lanterns. It was only later that I discovered that these were some of the famous Blue Ghost fireflies, found only in areas near to Asheville. Legend has it that these are the ghosts of Confederate soldiers, wandering aimlessly.

I moved back to Aiken about twenty years ago and have since lived in two different houses — both in woodland settings, and the perfect habitat, I would have thought, for fireflies. Sitting on my porch one evening in the first house, I witnessed one firefly rising out of the leaves underneath the oak. And then there was another. And that was it. It was the same story in the second house I moved into some years later. I’ve seen remarkably few fireflies since my return to Aiken — the most being in the large yard at my mother’s house, a natural landscape situated on a few acres south of Aiken. 

Firefly numbers are declining everywhere, it seems. While study is ongoing, this much is known: light pollution from cars, yards, houses and buildings is drowning out and disrupting the intricate ballet of signals that fireflies depend upon to communicate with one another and to ward off predators. Deforestation and extremes of weather and climate, including drought, also play a role. Chemical fertilizers, insecticides (including mosquito truck sprays and home floggers), herbicides, and other pesticides are outright killing fireflies, as well as their food sources. These chemicals also damage the delicate ground-litter habitat where so many invertebrates reside. Other culprits include the modern machinery of leaf blowers, lawn mowers, weed wackers; this, combined with the modern-day obsession with highly-manicured landscapes that produce close-cropped, leafless lawns, parks and greenspaces devoid of the habitat necessary to sustain the life cycle of the firefly eggs, larva and adults. It could be, too, that invasive species, such as fire ants, are playing a role.

As is the case with many human impacts on the natural world, there are things we can do on an individual level to make a difference. In the case of fireflies, we can look at the known causes of decline, which are, by no coincidence, the same causes for the decline in so many other species — including frogs, toads, birds, butterflies, and bees. 

Can we reduce or eliminate unnecessary light pollution? Reduce or eliminate pesticides and other high-maintenance landscaping practices? Maybe incorporate some natural, less-kempt areas into our landscapes? I like to believe that there will always be fireflies rising into the air on summer evenings and, nearby, people, young and old, with eyes to see them. 

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Contributor Burt Glover became an accidental naturalist during his earliest childhood days exploring the dirt roads, backyards, polo field and barns of the Magnolia-Knox-Mead neighborhood of 1950s Aiken. Birds are his first love, and he can identify an impressive range by song alone. He asserts that he is an observer, not an expert, on the topics of his writings, which range from birds, box turtles, frogs and foraging, to wasps, weeds, weather and beyond.