Himalayan glow-worm - not a firefly!

A Himalayan glow-worm walking on a rock-face in Landour, Uttarakhand, in May 2014. A viewer tells us these are likely to be adult female glow-worm firefly (probably a Pyrocoelia species) .. i.e. the more yellowish animal with the reddish head shield filmed at night. The Common glow-worm can be found in a number of locations including: Asia, China, Europe, Indian subcontinent, Russia, United Kingdom, Wales. Common glow-worms are actually bioluminescent beetles. It is the females which glow most noticeably - the larvae and adult males produce only a faint glow. The larvae are predatory and hunt slugs and snails, but as adults they rarely feed. Females have only a few weeks in which to attract a mate and lay eggs. After this, they die. As well as attracting a mate, the glowing abdomen is a warning to predators to stay away - glow-worms taste bad and contain chemicals that cause vomiting. Scientific name: Lampyris noctiluca . Common names: European glow-worm and Firefly glow-worm Source: Himalayan glowworm gloworm - not a firefly! It is not the dark that stimulates luminosity, for I watched glow-worms kept in a dark box throughout the day and they showed not the trace of a glow. There seems to be a relation between general bodily activity and luminosity. An energetic glow-worm is usually the most brilliant. By day the insects are motionless, but I once saw one of a group distinctly active in the daylight and it showed a clear glow. Mechanical stimulation induces luminosity. If a glowworm is stroked on the dorsal surface it often displays its light. I severed one transversely a short distance behind the head and the phosphorescence continued for two minutes after decapitation, but the muscular contractions of the limbs and abdomen still remained and were quite active one and a quarter hours later. The light of the glow-worm does not burst suddenly into full flare as in the case of the firefly. It appears gradually and comes slowly to a maximum. Its disappearance is even more gradual fading imperceptibly away, Fireflies are When I placed a box of glow-worms in a shower of rain many of them became phosphorescent even before sundown. It is not essential to moisten the luminary organs, for a drop of moisture on the head of the insect produces a similar effect. The fluid has therefore a reflex action. The moisture increases the muscular activity of the glow-worm, so that it might be thought to excite luminosity in the same way as gently stroking the insect’s back. But this is not so. Irritating the glow-worm by blowing at it or stroking it never produces the same intensity of glow as does the presence of a drop of moisture. Contact with moisture has a special power in developing the luminosity of these insects. It is not alone water that excites the light. A drop of spirit has a similar effect, and none shine more vividly than those which are enveloped in the moist and viscid mucus thrust over them by snails. Moisture of any kind is the chief stimulus to luminous activity. At night it is not the influence of darkness that calls forth the light, but rather the profuse dew that covers all the ground. The insects which I kept in absolute darkness by day showed no light. Nor is it the case that the advent of darkness coincides with the appearance of the glow-worms light. Luminosity does not appear until an hour or more after sundown, when the earth has sufficiently cooled to permit the deposit of a layer of dew. In all likelihood the luminous activity of the glow-worm is under a rhythmical sway, appearing by night and disappearing by day through the regular pulsations of an internal nervous mechanism. Source: This footage is part of the professionally-shot broadcast stock footage archive of Wilderness Films India Ltd., the largest collection of HD imagery from South Asia. The Wilderness Films India collection comprises of 50, 000 hours of high quality broadcast imagery, mostly shot on HDCAM / SR 1080i High Definition, Alexa, SR, HDV and XDCAM. Write to us for licensing this footage on a broadcast format, for use in your production! We are happy to be commissioned to film for you or else provide you with broadcast crewing and production solutions across South Asia. We pride ourselves in bringing the best of India and South Asia to the world... Please subscribe to our channel wildfilmsindia on Youtube for a steady stream of videos from across India. Also, visit and enjoy your journey across India at , India’s first video-based social networking experience! Reach us at rupindang @ gmail . com and admin@ We filmed these freshly born / hatched glow worms hatching from their pupae / the pupa, at the Wilderness Orchard and botanical gardens in Uttarakhand, India. Just like fireflies, they glow in the dark.