Glow Worm Dell

The cool part about about New Zealand is all the little things to discover if you take the time. Fern fronds, cup ferns, fantails, fault lines in earthquake zones, etc all make for neat learning simply because we don't have them at home. One such thing is called a glow worm.

"The New Zealand glow-worm is one of the most interesting insects of the New Zealand fauna. It occurs throughout the country in limestone caves, unused mining tunnels, along stream banks, in damp bush-clad ravines, in damp shady crevices, and under tree-fern fronds in rain forests. The New Zealand glowworm is a fly belonging to the gnat family. The larvae, pupae, and adults of both sexes are all luminous. In the larval stage the light attracts prey in the form of other organisms, while in the pupal and adult stages the light attracts the opposite sex. The larva prepares a nest in the form of a tunnel of mucous and silk, and suspends from this an array of fishing lines composed of the same materials. Prey is snared in the long sticky fishing lines. The larva hauls up the fishing line on which the prey is entangled and consumes the trapped insect. Up to 70 lines are let down by one larva and, depending on the size of the larva, the lines vary in length from under 1 cm to 50 cm. Each fishing line consists of a long thread of silk which bears at regular intervals a series of mucous droplets giving the appearance of a string of beads. The droplet size is about 1 mm in diameter. Nests and lines can be reconstructed and repaired. Fully grown larvae measure up to 40 mm in length and adult flies average 15 mm in length. The life cycle appears to take 11–12 months, with the larval stage lasting eight or nine months. Breeding shows little evidence of being a seasonal phenomenon."

When we arrived back to our accommodations one night, there was a glow worm dell not too far away. 12:30 in the morning after driving 7 hours and fishing 7 hours that day, it was a little much to go and take photos, but that's what AJ & I did. We walked in the to `dell,`, which was a small amphitheater under a lush forest canopy. One your eyes adjust, it`s like a 3-D experience with glow worms in every direction about you, seemingly suspended animation. And, I got the shot I was hoping to get on a 5 minute open shutter. I`ve not worked with open shutters at night to pick up tiny, low lights from 1cm worms from 10m away before. We played with the ISO, exposure, etc. After a long day we were happy to get any shot, but this one turned out quite well: