Wasn't it easier in your firefly catching days?

August 4, 2016 10:41 AM

For over three decades, children across the U.S. spent their summers hunting fireflies for profit. The Sigma Firefly Scientists' Club, a subsidiary of the Sigma Chemical Company (now Sigma-Aldrich), paid kids a penny for each lightning bug they captured and returned to the company before quietly shuttering in the mid-1990s. Today, one of Sigma-Aldrich's few remaining jars of desiccated firefly tails (lanterns) can be yours for the low, low price of 392USD. But what did they want all those fireflies for in the first place?

Firefly luciferin is used in a luciferin-luciferase system that requires ATP as a cofactor. Because of this, it can be used as a bio-indicator of the presence of energy or "life."

❂ The Use of Bioluminescence in Gene Research
❂ More Uses for Luciferase
❂ Chemistry in its element: Luciferin
❂ How Do Fireflies Glow?
❂ Museum of Science Firefly Watch

posted by amnesia and magnets (39 comments total)

And we know the consequence
posted by aeshnid at 10:46 AM on August 4, 2016 [1 favorite]

I don't have a lot of things that make me super nostalgic for childhood, not because it was bad but just because I didn't really form strong associations with stuff I did as a kid, like some people do. Fireflies are an exception though; they instantly take me back to a house we lived in from when I was three until I was twelve where we'd get lots of fireflies (and bats!) all summer long. Between that and the Taylor Swift lyric title, I am all about this post.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 10:50 AM on August 4, 2016 [5 favorites]

I made the title a T-Swift lyric just for you, Bulgaroktonos!
posted by amnesia and magnets at 10:51 AM on August 4, 2016 [5 favorites]

I never liked summer much, but the swarms of fireflies in the evening were one of the few compensations for it, and they were wonderful and magical. I wish there were an effort underway to restore them.
posted by Pope Guilty at 10:52 AM on August 4, 2016 [1 favorite]

Fireflies are basically the only environmental/seasonal thing I miss from the east. My wife, who up in California, had never seen one in real life until we visited my parents and met my brith family in North Carolina and Virginia a few summers ago.
posted by mwhybark at 10:55 AM on August 4, 2016 [3 favorites]

Walked through Prospect Park last night around dusk, saw lots of fireflies. Happybear69.
posted by grumpybear69 at 10:59 AM on August 4, 2016 [9 favorites]

Now that I live in the Pacific northwest, one of the few things I miss about living in the southeastern US is fireflies (and the fall leaf colors, but that's a separate post).
posted by Greg_Ace at 11:51 AM on August 4, 2016

And we know the consequence

The article you posted points the blame to light pollution and habitat loss, not harvesting by sigma
posted by Dr. Twist at 11:55 AM on August 4, 2016 [1 favorite]

Absolutely, without a doubt, my favorite Katamari Damacy level.
posted by sexyrobot at 12:20 PM on August 4, 2016 [7 favorites]

He's always had a stunted sense of fun.
posted by dlugoczaj at 12:28 PM on August 4, 2016 [1 favorite]

I've never seen a firefly. Is this something I should seek out?
posted by msbutah at 1:09 PM on August 4, 2016 [1 favorite]

I actually did this for several summers and made some nice pocket change for comic books and candy. I still have the last brochure that Sigma Firefly Scientists Club sent me. I saved it because I figured no one would believe me.
posted by Ron Thanagar at 1:14 PM on August 4, 2016 [7 favorites]

I thought that the deadliest predator for a Firefly was the Fox.
posted by delfin at 1:38 PM on August 4, 2016 [5 favorites]

Deadliest predator for a Firefly is probably Reavers or the Alliance.
posted by The otter lady at 1:49 PM on August 4, 2016 [7 favorites]

My best friend and myself (in 4th of 5th grade) devised a baseball training regime that consisted of standing in the yard at dusk with a baseball bat in our usual batting stance, trying to improve our quickness by swinging and hitting fireflies as they lit up.

Neither one of us progressed beyond Little League, so it apparently didn't help.
posted by COD at 1:50 PM on August 4, 2016

But how many fireflies would it take to match the brightness of the Sun
posted by borkencode at 1:51 PM on August 4, 2016 [2 favorites]

Also, if you put 68,000 fireflies in an industrial-sized blender you get raw material for a 1-kiloton atomic bomb.
posted by delfin at 1:53 PM on August 4, 2016

We were raised on the story of how my mom broke a mason jar over her cousin's head catching fireflies. So we were taught they were for looking at rather than catching.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 1:59 PM on August 4, 2016 [1 favorite]

I've never seen a firefly. Is this something I should seek out?

Stepping out of a dark woods path onto a meadow filled with hundreds or thousands of fireflies is a cherished memory of mine. One or two at a time isn't that spectacular, but seeing the edge of the woods glowing with darting lights is.
posted by Candleman at 2:10 PM on August 4, 2016 [5 favorites]

Teaching little kids that the tails could be used as glow in the dark face paint was a favorite mom-bait of mine.

I will likely burn in firefly hell.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 2:30 PM on August 4, 2016 [3 favorites]

There were so many around when I grew up that as a pre-teen neighborhood kids and I would take whiffle ball bats and whack fireflies until the bat glowed. I can still see the arc of the whacked ones trailing off into the dark. Some boys who wanted to really show off would rub them on their teeth and then go around smiling at everyone. It would glow for a long time. Had to do it when Mom was inside or she'd tell us to stop. Now I get to watch my kids run around with bats and ...

Just kidding, we shouldn't have done that and I don't let my boys do all the dumb stuff I did. But holy cow, there would be millions of them.

Here in the Eastern US we've mostly ruined our view of the stars with development. Fireflies fill the void.
posted by Patapsco Mike at 2:51 PM on August 4, 2016 [2 favorites]

mwhybark: "Fireflies are basically the only environmental/seasonal thing I miss from the east. My wife, who up in California, had never seen one in real life until we visited my parents "

Same for my California-born wife, she thought they were some made up thing until she saw them at dusk last month in suburban Chicago.
posted by wcfields at 3:05 PM on August 4, 2016

If you do come across fireflies in Britain then make every effort to catch and keep one and let us know immediately.
posted by tss at 3:36 PM on August 4, 2016 [1 favorite]

Teaching little kids that the tails could be used as glow in the dark face paint was a favorite mom-bait of mine.

My mom once told us about how she and her sisters could catch them and smear them around their fingers to create glowing rings. We were slack-jawed horrified.
posted by Pope Guilty at 3:41 PM on August 4, 2016 [1 favorite]

I did this for a couple of summers in the Chicago suburbs in the mid 1970s. I collected them in a Pringles can and froze them, and then would count out the little frozen carcasses each morning and bundle them in baggies--maybe in sets of 100? At the end of the summer I'd take all my frozen baggies to a collection site--I think a high school parking lot--and turn them in and get paid. All my friends thought it was disgusting! This was over 40 years ago and I still have incredibly vivid memories of the whole process!
posted by bookmammal at 5:17 PM on August 4, 2016 [3 favorites]

One time I was pulling out unwanted pachysandra at dusk and found a glowing pupa/cocoon, kinda cool. We have noticeably fewer this year :(
posted by childofTethys at 5:54 PM on August 4, 2016

"Stepping out of a dark woods path onto a meadow filled with hundreds or thousands of fireflies is a cherished memory of mine."

Also awesome is when they're thick that year and you're driving down a rural interstate at dusk and it's like entering warp speed with the lights vooming past your car.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 5:56 PM on August 4, 2016 [5 favorites]

There were so many around when I grew up that as a pre-teen neighborhood kids and I would take whiffle ball bats and whack fireflies until the bat glowed.

Now I feel slightly less bad about doing the same thing.

But, yeah. I currently live in the rural house in which I grew up and there are maybe 50% - 60% as many lightning bugs (as we call them) as even 10 or 15 years ago.
posted by dirigibleman at 6:03 PM on August 4, 2016

Also awesome is when they're thick that year and you're driving down a rural interstate at dusk and it's like entering warp speed with the lights vooming past your car.

Then you can pretend that the glowing smears on your windshield are a HUD.
posted by Pope Guilty at 6:06 PM on August 4, 2016 [1 favorite]

I don't remember it, but my parents told me that I caught fireflies for a penny each as a young boy in Cockeysville, MD, circa 1968. They said it was for research at Johns Hopkins, but I wonder if it was part of the Sigma program. I'll ask mom tomorrow and report back. It always pains me to read articles on the decline of fireflies; they were (and are) an integral part of summer for me. But I am fortunate enough to live in a wooded area that is prime firefly (and railroad worm) habitat, and so on summer evenings there is always a light show for me to enjoy. And on a recent trip to North Carolina I got to tour (if that is the right word for something that is in a single modest building) this brewery, which gets its name from these fireflies which are apparently native to a small region of the southern Appalachians and only light up for a few weeks in late spring and early summer. I see a trip that way sometime in late May in my future!
posted by TedW at 7:15 PM on August 4, 2016 [2 favorites]

Also awesome is when they're thick that year and you're driving down a rural interstate at dusk and it's like entering warp speed with the lights vooming past your car.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 7:56 PM on August 4

Yep, you're definitely an Illinoisan.
posted by InsertNiftyNameHere at 7:26 PM on August 4, 2016 [1 favorite]

I-94 between Madison and Delafield, Wisconsin, was also a great road to zoom down when fireflies were lighting the sides up. Haven't been there at the right time of year and day lately, though.
posted by Electric Elf at 7:48 PM on August 4, 2016

I now live in a more nearly-rural place about 20 miles from the suburb where I grew up. Fireflies were thick on summer nights in that suburb. I think I saw one here a few years ago, but I wasn't sure. I miss those little guys.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 7:52 PM on August 4, 2016

Luciferin is an especially useful indicator because it has a much wider intensity range than GFP, three or four magnitudes, IIRC. It's also more transient since it's a consumable substrate. That's also the downside, of course - you have to be able to deliver it.

Anyway, I've made luciferase in lab, but I've always ordered luciferin via done sorry of kit. I assume Sigma has giant vats of Bacillus or Sf9 or something churning it out. (And they would be underwhelming vats - if your luciferin production line is glowing, you're losing product.)

I leave any remaining mol bio fun facts to someone who has used this system in the past ten years, which I have not.
posted by maryr at 9:24 PM on August 4, 2016 [2 favorites]

My old house three miles away by the woods had a ton of them, but my current house has basically one. (As in, I think ,I have seen two in five years.) Can they be transplanted to an area somehow?
posted by wenestvedt at 3:45 AM on August 5, 2016

Anyway, I've made luciferase in lab

I feel like this is the setup for a B-horror movie about an artificial devil.
posted by Pope Guilty at 9:17 AM on August 5, 2016

Wiffle Ball Bat? My brother and I used Badminton rackets so two or more glowing sparks flew off into the night.
posted by Megafly at 10:23 AM on August 5, 2016

Wiffle Ball Bat? My brother and I used Badminton rackets so two or more glowing sparks flew off into the night.
posted by Megafly at 12:23 PM on August 5

Those were also my preferred weapons of choice. The whiffle ball bat was a bit less effective because the bugs would, many times, get sucked into the air flow around the bat and avoid their demise. The badminton rackets were pretty much 100% effective.

At some point in the future I'm suffering greatly if the fireflies have any say in the matter.
posted by InsertNiftyNameHere at 6:40 PM on August 5, 2016

Fireflies are thick in the pastures and the creek this year. It's one of the glories of summer, just watching them glow and disappear and glow again.
posted by MonkeyToes at 6:27 PM on August 6, 2016 [1 favorite]