Fireflies make dazzling comeback in NYC area for this surprising reason
The metro area's once-dimming firefly population has made a dazzling comeback this summer thanks to the abnormal amount of rain dumped on the region in the past few months.
'They need to have moist, wet environments. They do really well when there's a lot of rainfall,' explained Dr. Jessica Ware, an entomologist and curator at the American Museum of Natural History.
Advertisement
3 Fireflies are making a comeback in the metro area this summer thanks to the abnormal amount of rainfall.
Xinhua News Agency via Getty Images
'The extra rain, that extra moisture, that is really good for the juvenile [fireflies] — the juveniles develop into adults, and those are the adults that are moving around and flashing.'
While the wet stuff may have foiled plenty of human-made plans, it made for an all-out buffet of snails and slugs for young lightning bugs to feast on before burrowing in the moist ground to transform from their wormlike state into the illuminated critters that are synonymous with summer.
Advertisement
Scientists have not yet been able to quantify just how much lightning bugs are surging across the five boroughs and New Jersey, but it's clear to anyone who takes a walk at dusk that the illuminated critters are floating around in stronger numbers than in previous years.
The flood of bugs can be directly linked to the nearly double amount of rainfall that was doused on the five boroughs alone this spring, with roughly 6 inches falling in May.
More than half the month — 18 days — recorded precipitation.
3 Lightening bugs thrive in moist conditions.
TNS
Advertisement
But the surge in fireflies this summer is also a trick on the eyes, Ware said.
'In general, populations are declining, so it's not necessarily that we're seeing more. It's that we're not seeing as few,' Ware said.
Fireflies are not considered to be an endangered or threatened species, but their populations have been seriously dwindling in recent years.
3 Firefly populations are overall still declining, according to experts.
TNS
Advertisement
They face a series of hazards, including from insecticides and light pollution, the latter of which is a serious issue in the Big Apple.
As with migrating birds, lightning bugs become disoriented by overwhelming lights — and if it's too bright, the fireflies are unable to see one another's flashing bulbs, an issue with mating.
There also were fewer inches of rain overall in the Big Apple in the past two years, meaning fireflies were a rarer sight in the city — if anyone cared enough to notice.
'That's the Joni Mitchell song, right? 'You don't know what you've got 'til it's gone,' ' Ware said, quoting the classic 'Big Yellow Taxi.'
Fortunately, New Yorkers can expect the lightning bugs to light up the rest of their summer, especially for the remainder of July.
The fireflies are putting on their flashy and bright 'teenage dance' to find their mates this month, with most of the action lighting up the sky at dusk.
'This is a peak time for them — they're all going crazy with their hormones, but they're just trying to get as many copies of their genes for the next generation as possible,' explained Ware.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Associated Press
a day ago
- Associated Press
Fireflies are lighting up summer skies. But the glowing bugs are still on the decline
NEW YORK (AP) — Fireflies are lighting up summer evenings across the U.S. Northeast, putting on dazzling shows in backyards and city parks. There's no official count, but experts say a particularly wet spring may have created the ideal conditions for young fireflies to grow into adults to set summer nights aglow. Fireflies light the night everywhere: There are over 2,000 known species across the globe. They use their characteristic flashes to communicate and find the perfect mate. In New York City, the lightning bugs are out in the five boroughs, sparkling once the sun goes down in places like Central Park and Prospect Park. The summer months are ideal to spot them as they start to dwindle throughout the month of August. While northeastern nights may seem brighter this summer, the bugs are still on the decline and they're waning at a faster rate than ever before. 'It would be a mistake to say firefly populations are high this year, therefore there's no decline,' said Matt Schlesinger with the New York Natural Heritage Program, who is part of an effort to count fireflies in state parks. Habitat loss, pesticide use and light pollution are responsible for a decline in population. In cities, blaring lights from billboards, cars and storefronts can drown out the bugs' glow, making it harder for them to find their kin and pass their genes onto the next generation. Fireflies are part of the story of summer, said entomologist Jessica Ware with the American Museum of Natural History. Her children grew up seeing them flash in her backyard, but the bugs started to disappear once her kids hit their teenage years. In the past few months, her family has seen the fireflies come back. Their return made her think about all the kids who are glimpsing the glowing bugs for the very first time. 'It shouldn't be new,' Ware said. 'It should be something that is a universal part of summer.' To look out for fireflies, consider turning the lights off at night and avoid spraying front lawns with insecticides. 'We still need to do some work ourselves, to change our behavior, to really make sure that large populations can continue to stay large,' Ware said. ___ The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Scientific American
21-07-2025
- Scientific American
Were the Wright Brothers First in Flight? Inside a 1925 Dispute
Rachel Feltman: Happy Monday, listeners! For Scientific American 's Science Quickly, I'm Rachel Feltman. You may have noticed we've been taking a bit of a break from our usual Monday news roundup to make room for special episodes, including our bird flu series, as well as to accommodate some summer holidays and vacation plans for our small but mighty team. We'll be back to the news roundup format next week. For today I thought it would be fun to dip back into the Scientific American archives for a few minutes. Let's check in on what SciAm was up to exactly one century ago, in July of 1925. On supporting science journalism If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today. I'll start with the issue's cover story, which was contributed by the curator of marine life at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City and seems to have been written, at least in large part, to introduce readers to the concept of tide pools. These are indents in rocky coastal areas that during high tide get filled with water, which remains trapped once the tide goes back out. The writer describes the abundant marine life that could be found in the high tide puddles of Woods Hole, Massachusetts and other Massachusetts tidal zones, waxing poetic about barnacles and sea worms, which he compares to 'acrobats' and 'Goddesses of the sea,' respectively. One hundred years later, scientists and laypeople alike are still quite taken with tide pools. They're really interesting environments: during low tide they're generally shallow enough that they can get quite warm, which can be challenging for the organisms living inside them. Other difficulties for these organisms include the fact that tide pools are easy for predators such as birds and crabs to access. On top of that, oxygen levels in the pool drop off between infusions of new seawater. Plus, tidal pool residents often have to withstand crashing waves when the ocean reaches them again. A lot has changed since 1925, but checking out tide pools is still a great pastime for anyone hanging around the coast. Depending on where you live, you can spot anemones, starfish, coral and even octopi, among other things. The issue also features a somewhat scathing assessment of the U.S. commercial aviation industry as it stood in 1925. According to Scientific American 's editors, someone visiting from abroad asked them whether one could travel from New York to Chicago by airplane. (He asked this question, by the way, by calling up the magazine's office. Life was hard before Google.) The editors told him that he'd have to hire his own airplane to make such a trip, which would be very expensive. But that got them thinking: Would this request have been reasonable in the traveler's home country? Thus began SciAm 's investigation into the world of commercial flight. RIP SciAM Editors, you would've loved The Rehearsal. The resulting article points out that in the U.S. in 1925 commercial aviation was mainly used to get mail from one coast to the other. Meanwhile, the article explains, countries in Europe were already in the midst of an aviation boom, using planes to move people and products all over the place. According to the article, one could travel from London to Berlin for $40, which amounts to about $753 today. That's not exactly bargain airfare, but it's not so far off from what a modern flier might pay to travel in business class, and one can imagine that most folks paying for the privilege of air travel in 1925 were either traveling for important business, flush with cash or more likely both. It's clear that the Scientific American editors were dismayed to find the U.S. lagging so far behind. In an inset titled, rather dramatically, 'Are We a Negligent People?' the magazine asks what has become of American aviation. 'We invented the airplane, neglected it, and left to Europe the task of putting it into widely extended commercial service,' the section reads probably in a transatlantic accent. 'As a people we are supposed to have a perfect genius for practising rapid-fire methods in our industrial activities. We are supposed to have developed time-saving into an exact science and have shown the world how to practise it. In the airplane, the Wrights gave us a time-saving machine which, if our business men had not been so possessed with the desire to make money and make it quickly, would today be one of our principal means of transportation for men, mail and light freight. Save for the fine work of the Army, the Navy, the Air Postal Service and a few private firms, we have done practically nothing, leaving to Europe the developing of commercial transportation.' That's not the only aviation tea in the July 1925 issue. In the magazine's 'Our Point of View' section the editors reflect on Orville Wright's decision to send the first power-driven, person-carrying aircraft to the British National Museum. If you're not familiar with this historical scandal, here's the gist: the Wright brothers are famous for making the first powered, controlled flight in 1903. But for decades the Smithsonian Institution tried to give that honor to Samuel Langley, its former secretary, whose own flying machine had crashed just days before the Wrights' aircraft succeeded. In 1914 the Smithsonian's director had Langley's aircraft retrofitted to prove it could have flown—if only it hadn't failed—and used that to award him the credit. The museum displayed the aircraft with a placard to that effect. Orville Wright was, understandably, displeased. In Scientific American 's July 1925 issue the editors say that the museum display is misleading and that Langley definitely did not beat the Wright brothers. 'The whole matter, indeed, may be regarded as very much of a tempest in a teapot,' the editors wrote, 'and it could easily be set right if the Smithsonian Institution would remove the objectionable placard and change it so that there could be no possible misunderstanding.' That wouldn't actually happen until 1928, and the Smithsonian didn't get around to apologizing until 1942. But hey, we tried! Though the U.S. was lagging behind in commercial flight, a graphic from the 1925 issue shows we were leading the charge in at least one technological arena: gabbing on the phone. The infographic contends that 62.9 percent of the world's telephones in 1925 were located in the U.S. and that the country led the way in phones per capita as well. We also came out ahead in terms of how often people got on the horn: the average person in the United States apparently sent 182 messages via phone each year, with second place going to Denmark with 123. And Russians, the editors noted, were 'content with four and one-half calls' each. Sure we're talking a lot, but are we actually saying anything? That's all for today's archival adventure. We'll be back on Wednesday to talk about some of SciAm 's hottest summer reading recommendations. And tune in next week for a return to our good old news roundup. Science Quickly is produced by me, Rachel Feltman, along with Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was edited by Alex Sugiura. Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck fact-check our show. Our theme music was composed by Dominic Smith. Subscribe to Scientific American for more up-to-date and in-depth science news.
Yahoo
17-07-2025
- Yahoo
World's only complete baby dinosaur skeleton from 150-million-year ago up for auction
Sotheby's is auctioning the only known juvenile specimen of a Ceratosaurus nasicornis dinosaur for an estimated $4-6 million. It is one of the finest and most complete examples of its genus. A swift and agile distant cousin of the T. rex, the extraordinary Ceratosaurus youth at auction measures 6 feet and 3 inches tall and 10 feet 8 inches long. Sotheby's has mounted it for the first time in history as one of the most extraordinary examples from its genus. The remarkable specimen is the latest in Sotheby's "pioneering National History offerings," which began in 1997. In 2024, Sotheby's made a historic sale of Apex at $45 million, which set the world record for any dinosaur or fossil sold at auction. The Ceratosaurus reflects their 'commitment to presenting the most important and precious treasures from our planet's deep past,' as per a press release. Sotheby's will present it at auction on July 16. Have a few million to spare to buy a dinosaur? The Ceratosaurus nasicornis was first unearthed in 1996 at the famed Bone Cabin Quarry (West) in Wyoming. The fossil bed gained notoriety through the efforts of the American Museum of Natural History, which conducted extensive excavations from 1898 to 1905. Henry Fairfield Osborn, curator of vertebrate paleontology at the American Museum, called it 'the greatest find of extinct animals made in a single locality in any part of the world.' Hailing from one of the most significant dinosaur beds on Earth, archaeologists have only found three other Ceratosaurus in history. Cassandra Hatton, Vice Chairman, Science and Natural History, called the juvenile Ceratosaurus one of the "very finest dinosaurs" ever seen at auction. As the second most complete skeleton in existence, the 'beautifully mineralized" fossil bones give the rare object and piece of natural history a rich, grey-black color. Made up of 139 bone elements, the Ceratosaurus has 'a remarkably complete and fully articulated skull.' "The most delicate parts," Sotheby's continues, "have been well preserved, including its unique and distinctive nasal horn, elongate teeth, and row of bony armor running down its back and tail.' As a lethal predator, it boasts a unique anatomy that sets it apart from other theropods of the Late Jurassic, 'suggesting it occupied a specialized ecological niche.' At six feet tall, the 'baby' dinosaur would have frightened most humans as a tall specimen. However, its adult counterparts would have soared to even greater heights, imbuing the skeleton with the thrill and fear these prehistoric beasts tend to inspire. A dinosaur from a pivotal moment in Earth's history Sotheby's says the Ceratosaurus lived during the Kimmeridgian Stage of the Late Jurassic—a time of intense evolutionary activity, with warm climates, rising sea levels, and the slow breakup of the supercontinent Pangaea. Subsequently, due to the shifting conditions, dinosaurs flourished in diverse habitats that the shifting conditions produced across North America, Europe, and parts of Africa, 'allowing predators like Ceratosaurus and herbivores such as Stegosaurus and Apatosaurus to thrive," as per the press release. Not only will the lucky buyer purchase a rare dinosaur species, but one that lived at a fascinating moment in the planet's history. Two of the dinosaurs they previously sold are currently on display at two major museums in the United States, so the distinctive and impressive Ceratosaurus nasicornis will most likely end up in a gallery that the general public can visit. Solve the daily Crossword
