Fun with an LED flashlight

I love these tiny little LED flashlights. I brought Levi, my Weimaraner, out for his last call and noticed the fireflies were out.


I know female fireflies will often imitate the flash of those males who aren't doing the same flash they are so they can eat them rather then mate.


I watched for a bit and noticed a firefly would change their flash every little bit so I thought I'd have some fun with my LED and set up a flash pattern.


Sure enough it changed to my pattern so I did it again and it answered back.


By this time Levi was waiting at the door to go in so I flashed one more time and got a response and the last one I flashed was the same pattern that fly was doing in the beginning, it didn't respond that time.

Pretty much what I have read in some nature journals years back, I was just putzing around with this tiny LED light because it is similar to their luminescence......

Aspects of male flash patterns are also thought to be affected by sexual selection. Female
fireflies have been shown to prefer certain characteristics of a male's photic signal (such as
increased flash rate) and respond preferentially to males that possess these "sexy" signal
components (Branham and Greenfield 1996).
Firefly Facts
Copyright 1998 Marc Branham.

Tricky Insects~Fireflies Use Aggressive Mimicry
Aggressive mimicry is a phenomenon where one organism (a mimic) tricks another organism (the dupe) into thinking it is another (the model), with the result being a negative outcome for the dupe, as well as the model. In the case of aggressive mimicry in fireflies, mated females that belong to a few species in the genus Photuris mimic the female responses of other fireflies in the same area in order to attract males of the mimicked species. When these males are tricked (or duped) into landing near these mimics to mate, they are pounced upon and eaten (Lloyd 1981)!
Recent evidence also suggests that these female mimics are not only acquiring food but also
defensive chemicals from their prey, which they themselves do not produce in large quantities
(Eisner et al. 1997).