What Does A Lightning Bug Eat

Once predators get a bite they associate the unpleasant taste with firefly light and avoid attacking the lightning bugs in the future.

What does a lightning bug eat.

They are soft bodied beetles that are commonly called fireflies glowworms or lightning bugs for their conspicuous use of bioluminescence during twilight to attract mates or prey. This is where the lightning bugs come in. Fireflies produce a cold light with no infrared or ultraviolet frequencies. Lightning bug larvae live on the ground under bark and in moist swampy places.

Lightning bug larvae eat snails slugs and worms. What a beneficial beetle. A few asian species use gills to breathe underwater where they eat aquatic snails and other mollusks. Even better most species are predatory feeding on the larvae of insect pests as well as on slugs and snails.

Placing copper strips or pennies in your hosta a favorite target of iowa s gray garden slugs hasn t been proven to prevent the slugs damage. This chemically produced light from the lower abdomen may be yellow green or pale red with wavelengths from 510 to 670 nanomete. Lightning bugs also eat other insect larvae and snails. They eat earthworms snails and slugs plus they may scavenge certain small dead animals and other organic material.

Attracting lightning bugs to your garden is definitely a good thing to do as unlike many other less desirable bugs these beneficial insects don t bite they aren t poisonous and they carry no diseases. Several species of adult lightning bugs attempt to lure other species of lightning bugs so they can eat them. They eat soft bodied insects that live on or in the ground like snails slugs worms or other larvae. The larvae of most fireflies are predaceous beneficial insects that feed on snails slugs and worms.

Although some adults of certain firefly species might still catch other bugs for dinner most adults actually feed on nectar and pollen. Other adult species sustain themselves with plant nectar. Some species are arboreal and their larvae hunt tree snails. According to national geographic some species do not seem to eat at all once they reach the adult stage which makes some sense once you learn that their entire life span is about 2 months.

Most firefly species inhabit moist terrestrial environments where they feed on snails or worms in the soil. Once they find their prey they inject them with a substance that immobilizes them. The lampyridae are a family of insects in the beetle order coleoptera with more than 2 000 described species. They eat earthworms snails and slugs plus they may scavenge certain small dead animals and other organic material.

As they mature and turn into beetles they do one of several things depending on which species of firefly they are. The second stage of the life cycle of a firefly is the larval stage to develop into a pupa the larvae generally eat small insects snails slugs earthworms dead animals and organic material that is available in their habitat. But lightning bugs in their larval stage prey on slugs.