Related species occupy similar habitats in Tasmania and on Australia’s east coast. The Waitomo glow worm species is endemic to New Zealand, occurring in a number of limestone cave systems throughout the country. “That works fine when the moon and stars are real,” said Dave Merritt, a biologist at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, “but when the source is close they end up spiraling into it.”īioluminescence serves many purposes in nature, but using light to attract prey is relatively rare, especially on land. They keep the celestial bodies at a constant angle to fly in a straight line. Many of these insects, including moths, navigate by starlight. The constellations on these cave ceilings are made of glow worms, not stars. The glow worms’ victims are flying insects that inhabit the caves, sometimes hatching from eggs at the stream’s surface and sometimes drifting in from the outside world by air or water. But unlike the characteristic yellow flashes from fireflies, which attract mates, the glow worm’s steady blue light has a more insidious purpose: it’s bait. Like fireflies, Waitomo’s worms glow by breaking down a light-emitting protein. (Erik Rochner/Taranaki Educational Resource) The glow worm is the larval stage of a flying gnat species, Arachnocampa luminosa. (Jason Roehrig)īut what looked like galaxies overhead to these first explorers at Waitomo were colonies of glow worms, the larval stage of a flying gnat species that has earned the name Arachnocampa luminosa (“glowing spider-worm”) for its combination of awe-inspiring bioluminescence and clever - if grisly - predatory habits. Glow worms illuminate the ceiling at Waitomo Cave. Once in the Waitomo cave, Fred Mace and Tane Tinorau looked up from their candles and were dazzled by the thousands of tiny blue lights coating the rock surfaces, giving the ceiling the appearance of a natural planetarium. Locals called the place Waitomo, or “where the water flows into the ground.” At the time, what lay beyond was unknown. In 1887, a Maori chief and an English surveyor on New Zealand’s North Island rode a handmade raft through a cave entrance where a local stream disappeared into the darkness.
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