One evening, when we lived in North Carolina, we went to DuPont Forest in Transylvania county (where they also filmed The Hunger Games) and saw Phausis reticulata…also known as Blue Ghost fireflies.
The fireflies are indigenous to the area and they only can be seen for about a month each year…and then they are gone. It was a little scary being in the forest where the bears roam, in the pitch black of night, to see these little critters, but it was well worth it.
The show started out slowly with a few blue ghosts hovering about, but then really got amazing at around 10 pm when hundreds of them appeared, hovering over the forest floor about two feet off the ground. Their lights do not blink on and off like the fireflies we are familiar with, but rather stay on for quite some time until they go out…only to be recharged and lit up a few seconds later. And why do they appear at this time of year? It is mating season for the ghost fireflies. The little females have no wings…so they can’t fly away…making them easy pickins’ for the males.
In order not to blind other observers in the area, we were asked to carry flashlights covered with red paper. I was thinking that the males might mistake our flashlights for flying bordellos in a red light district and forget their task at hand, but hopefully, the mating season was as productive as ever and next year we will observe the fruits of their labor.