The Unknown World of Glow Worms- Week #7- by Cedar

Hi Readers,

This post is about Arachnocampa glow worms (Arachnocampa is a genus of glow worm). When you think of a cave you most likely think of a creepy rock hole. Well some caves have glow worms, and glow worms are awesome! On some nature documentary you probably have heard something about glow worms. But this post is going to tell you all about them. Basically, a glow worm is an insect (yep, that’s right, an insect not a worm) that lives in dark caves and actually glows.

In the next few paragraphs I’m going to tell you about glow worms in the genus Arachnocampa: 

Light

The glow worm has a green light on its backside which it uses to attract prey during its larval stage. However, glow worms make their light in all stages of their life except as eggs. The light is made through a chemical reaction. During the pupa stage the female makes a glow and attracts the male. When they are fully matured into fungus gnats they can’t fly well and only make a little light.

Eating and Hunting

Glow worms eat small insects like moths and mayflies. They catch them on their sticky strings. If food is short they eat each other! But they have to be careful since spiders, centipedes, and birds like to eat them. The fully matured glow worm can’t eat and only lives about 14 days. In order to catch their prey they hang 70 or so silk threads from their nest on the ceiling with mucus droplets which are sometimes poisonous.

Life Cycle

Glow worms start as eggs and hatch after about 20 days. Their larval stage lasts 6-12 months, which means they spend most of their life as a larva. Next, the larva becomes a pupa and hangs from the ceiling. The pupa stage lasts 1-2 weeks. When the glow worms come out as adult fungus gnats they can’t eat, which means they only live for a very short period. All they focus on is finding a mate and reproducing. They usually lay around 130 eggs.

Well that’s just a little about Arachnocampa glow worms. To learn more you can visit these cool websites about glow worms:

Wikipedia       

A-Z Animals

Te Ara Glow Worm Story

Waitomo Glow Worm Life Cycle

 

image

I made this picture on an app called Paper. CC-BY Cedar15

 

 

 

 

 

 

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