These amazing Fireflies blink in unison. Julie Gerberding brought these to my attention during her key note speech at the American Public Health Association Conference in 2007, and I've been curious to see them myself ever since.
On a visit to Thailand to see my family, my mom, dad, and cousin (Jeremy), took a van up to Amphawa, the little town famous for these fireflies. We rented a long-tail boat and toured up and down one of the tributaries off of the Meklong River not far from where it joins the ocean.
The fireflies love a special kind of tree that grows along the river and when it gets dark, you can see them lighting up the trees. It looked a lot like a string of blinking christmas lights, blinking together to the same beat, these tiny little white lights in the darkness. Apparently there are many more of them during the rainy season (their mating season). The males blink to attract females, but noone can really explain why they blink together.
Photos to be added soon.
Added to list: 11/22/07
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1 comment:
Very interesting! The link needs fixing though - here's the correct link:
http://www.hhmi.org/biointeractive/clocks/summer/fireflies.html
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