Biology Forum Community General Discussion Is there an insect that behaves this way?

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    • #16719
      sushiboy
      Participant

      I am in Pennsylvania and have been spotting something odd at night which I assume is an insect of some sort. Once it gets dark out, above my father-in-laws barn, there have been these green lights flitting around. Maybe flitting isn’t the right word. It is more of a very straight, fast moving green streak. The color is pretty much the same as a lightning bug but this doesn’t seem to behave like any lightning bug I’ve ever seen. Lightning bugs are kind of slow and to me just seem to wander around. This is a quick streak in some direction and then it goes out and immediately I will see another streak going in another direction and so on. When I first saw this I thought maybe it was falling stars off in the distance. After I watched this for a few seconds though I realized that it is actually right over the barn. I’d say the average green streak is probably 4 or 5 feet and lasts about a second or so. According to my father-in-law, he sees this every night lately so I am going to see if he can get any video of it to come out halfway decent. Anyway, has anyone heard of such a thing? I can’t really find anything online about it other than a few people on a paranormal forum who describe exactly what I saw but think they are seeing small UFOs or something. I did see on a wildlife website that apparently biologists will attach a green light to bats so they can track them but that the lights will fall off after a few minutes. The lights I am seeing go on for at least a few hours or so. I am kind of leaning towards the thought that it is an insect.

    • #111979
      Darby
      Participant
    • #111980
      sushiboy
      Participant

      Hmmm… the only one that is even close would be the Ghost Firefly. From what I can find around the web, though, is that they usually hang low to the ground and are only found in uninhabited areas. These are over a barn in a town. I wish I could find a video of them in action to see if their patterns are similar.

    • #112052
      JackBean
      Participant

      why don’t you make a video?

    • #112056
      sushiboy
      Participant

      I had planned on it last Friday (8/3). We sat out back until ~10:30PM and didn’t see it happen. I’ll probably try again this Friday.

    • #112544
      SteveYst
      Participant

      Hi "sushiboy", sure there are insects that do this. These are the "fireflies". However, they are not flies but beetles of the family Lampyridae. And both the males and the females produce "cold light" (by transforming the energy of some of their body-fat via special enzymes). It is only the males that can fly. Females sit somewhere between low vegetation and respond by appropriate "Morse"-signals to the light signals of the males. Fireflies can usually be observed on calm nights from early till about mid Summer.

    • #112775
      bravebeaker
      Participant

      two options come to my mind
      1. sick tinkerbell.
      or
      2. mini green latern

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