Analysis:
At night, people can see fireflies flying in an instant. This is because a chemical called luciferase in fireflies interacts with oxygen to produce light. This chemical called luciferase acts as a switch to start this reaction. When fireflies produce luciferase, this reaction begins, and fireflies will shine. The luminescence of fireflies is simply a series of complex biochemical reactions catalyzed by fluorescein. And light is the energy released in this process. Because different kinds of fireflies have different luminous modes, the isolation between species is naturally formed. Most species of fireflies are males with luminous bodies, while females have no luminous bodies or are stunted. Although most of the fireflies in our impression are two males and one female, this situation only appears in Luciola and Curtos, belonging to Luciola subfamily. Because, like Taiwan Province window firefly (Pyrocoelia ***), both males and females have two illuminants, and the biggest difference between them is that the female wings are short, while the male wings are long.
The luminous organ of fireflies consists of luminous cells, reflex cells, nerves and epidermis. If the structure of the luminous body is compared to a car lamp, the luminous cells are like the light bulb of the car lamp, and the cells in the reflective layer are like the lampshade of the car lamp, which will concentrate the light emitted by the luminous cells. So although it is only a small lamp, it also makes people feel quite bright in the dark.
However, fireflies emit light, starting from the transmission of nerve impulses to luminescent cells, so that fluorescein, which was originally suppressed, is released. There is a phosphorus-containing chemical called fluorescein in the luminous cells of fireflies, which is oxidized under the catalysis of fluorescein and the accompanying energy is released in the form of light. Because most of the energy generated by the reaction is used to emit light, only 2~ 10% of the energy is converted into heat energy, so when fireflies stop in our hands, we will not be burned by the light of fireflies, so some people call the light emitted by fireflies "cold light".
As for the use of fireflies, the assumptions put forward by early scholars include courtship, communication, lighting, warning, display, ethnic adjustment and other functions; But apart from courtship and communication, other functions are only the results of scientists' observation, or just speculation. It was not until recent years that scholars verified the warning: 1999, scholars Knight and others found that lizards who ate fireflies by mistake would die, confirming that adults glow not only to find spouses, but also to warn other creatures; Scholars Underwood and others did experiments with mice in 1997, which confirmed that the larval luminescence had a warning effect on mice.
The luminous behavior of fireflies at night, taking Luciola cerata as an example, the current research found that after sunset, males began to fly and glow in their habitats; Shortly after the males began to move, females began to appear in the high places around the habitat (females can also emit light, but there is only one light, while males have two lights). From 7: 00 to 1 1: 30 at night, hundreds of fireflies can be seen in their habitats, but almost after 1 1: 30, adults will glow. Moreover, the luminous frequency of male insects has also changed, which is different all night.
Other creatures that can emit light are algae in the ocean and other insects in the firefly family. They all use luciferase to react with oxygen to emit light.
They are courting.