Lewis - Silent sparks: the wondrous world of fireflies

SILENT SPARKS

SILENT SPARKS

The Wondrous World of Fireflies

SARA LEWIS

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

PRINCETON AND OXFORD

Copyright 2016 by Sara Lewis

Requests for permission to reproduce material from this work should be sent to Permissions, Princeton University Press

Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540

In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, 6 Oxford Street, Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1TR

press.princeton.edu

Jacket art and frontispiece: Wild Dance of Golden Fairies, courtesy of Yume Cyan / 500px

Excerpt from The Minpins, by Roald Dahl, copyright 1991 by Felicity Dahl and the other Executors of the Estate of Roald Dahl. Used by permission of Viking Books, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. Published in the UK by Jonathan Cape Ltd & Penguin Books Ltd (UK).

Excerpt from Wisdom of Insecurity, by Alan W. Watts, copyright 1951 by Pantheon Books, Inc. Used by permission of Pantheon Books, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.

Excerpt from Big Yellow Taxi, words and music by Joni Mitchell, 1970 (renewed) Crazy Crow Music.

All Rights Reserved

ISBN 978-0-691-16268-3

British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available

This book has been composed in Perpetua Std text with Trajan Pro display and Scala Sans OT captions

Printed on acid-free paper.

Printed in China

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

For my parents,
who lived and loved together for nearly ninety years,
and fed us wonder
when we were very young.

CONTENTS

PREFACE

CONFESSIONS OF A SCIENTIST ENRAPTURED

Fireflies light up our world. Among our most charismatic minifauna, fireflies might just be the best-loved insects on Earth. Time and again, fireflies magically rekindle our sense of wonder. You might cherish some childhood memories of chasing these silent sparks on warm summer evenings. You might be mesmerized right now by their lights twinkling in your own backyard. I readily admit that Im a firefly junkie, and perhaps you are, too. If you love fireflies, then I wrote this book for you.

I grew up a wild child, enthralled by lifes diversity. By the time Id turned eight I was set on becoming a biologist. Awakened to the natural world by sparkling waterfalls, mysterious hemlock forests, and brilliant night skies, I also vowed to stay familiar with wonder. Little did I know how challenging this would become in my chosen career.

My scientific knowledge burgeoned as I continued my training, first at Radcliffe College, and then at Duke University. For my PhD research I spent years diving on coral reefs to decipher their secrets, occasionally working and sleeping in an undersea habitat sunk 60 feet below the surface. For many decades, my scientific career has been devoted to studying the sex lives of various creatures, including fireflies. As an evolutionary ecologist and professor of biology at Tufts University, I have a truly enviable job: I get paid to be curious, to make new scientific discoveries. Ive written hundreds of scientific papers, mentored dozens of students, and won many grant competitions.

And Ive tried hard to retain my sense of wonder. But wonder, it turns out, doesnt garner much respect within the realm of academic science. We academics are rewarded for our scholarly productivitygetting research grants and writing technical articles that report our discoveries. Few scientists openly admit to being motivated by wonder. By some unspoken rule, a scientists feeling of awe for the natural world must be kept under wraps; to acknowledge wonder is tantamount to unreason, and therefore treason. There are some standout exceptions of course, including a few well meet in this book.

And scientific reductionism builds its own barriers to wonder. Scientists determine how things work by carefully taking them apart and poking around inside. Consider the miraculous, four-billion-year-old jigsaw puzzle called Life. As scientists, were trained to look beyond the wonder-inspiring picture displayed on the cover. So we crack open the box, spill out all the pieces. Then we focus down, down, intent on examining each separate piece. Turning each puzzle fragment over and over, we run our fingers along its edges, caressing contours to grasp its shape and deduce its place. Through endless trial and error, experiment and observation, we start to comprehend how these interlocking pieces fit together. With tremendous effort, we might eventually assemble all the pieces to recreate the whole panoramic view. But even then, after focusing so long on the minute details, its not easy for a scientist to fully recapture that experience of newly minted, breathtaking awe. As the Zen master Shunry Suzuki put it, In the beginners mind there are many possibilities, but in the experts there are few.

So for me, a scientist working hard to stay susceptible to wonder, this book represents my coming out. Ive spent decades delving into fireflies scientific details, yet these astonishing, radiant creatures still fill me with wonder. Despite my efforts in crafting this book, words can scarcely capture how I feel about fireflies. To me, and probably to you too, fireflies are certainly more than just charming. More than enchanting. Even more than enthralling. The closest I can come: Im enraptured by fireflies. And delighted, now, that I can finally share the many things I love about them.

Its also a privilege to convey the collective knowledge that scientists have accumulated about these creatures. Fireflies hold so many intriguing tales just waiting to be told! During the past thirty years, researchers from all over the world have divulged some surprising firefly secrets. Weve discovered the provenance of their bright lights, learned intimate details of their courtship and sex lives, detected unexpected poisons, treachery, and deceit. Yet the scientific articles describing these discoveries are often written in obscure technical jargon, and are sometimes hidden away behind paywalls. With this book, Ive tried to breathe some life into the science and to create an accessible and up-to-date account of these firefly revelations.

I have just one more goal in writing this book. By revealing the wondrous world of fireflies, Im hoping to persuade peopleyoung and old, in cities and in forests, all around the worldto join me in stepping out into the night. Were surrounded by so many digital distractions its difficult to find ways to stay connected to the natural world. But we wont need to travel to remote wilderness to experience natures wondersthese silent sparks are right in our backyards and city parks, just waiting to be discovered.

Remembertheres no quiz at the end of this book, so read on and enjoy the ride!

SILENT SPARKS

CHAPTER 1

SILENT SPARKS

And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who dont believe in magic will never find it