First of the season! I saw a couple of lightning bugs (AKA fireflies, or the popular Baltimore variation "Lightening" bugs) when I was hauling the garbage out last night. Cute little girls and guys, they are, and they use bioluminescence to light up. And they're out in summer, but they don't get overheated, because they use 99% of their energy to produce light, rather than heat. They carry around a supply of a compound called luciferin (note the root word "Lucifer"!) and mix that with an enzyme called luciferase, and presto: Light!
They only live for a couple of weeks, so they get right down to business, which in their cases is the old mating game. And there are lots of species of lightning bugs, each with its own unique flash pattern and flight path. This is how they make sure they are signaling the right kind of potential mate with their on-off lights.
And they spend up to two years as larvae, living in leaf litter and happily gobbling snails, slugs, and worms, before they get to spread their wings and live it up!
And while the common lore around here in the east is that the western part of the USA does not play host to lightning bugs, the fact is, western fireflies do exist- but nature did not equip them with the chemicals that would make them glow. So they are out there zipping around, but they don't light up.
The more you know about fireflies, the more you start to realize that maybe nature is trying to tell humans to use more of their energy to produce more light and less heat. Hmmm.
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