A Light At The End Of The Tunnel

This week's PhotoHunt theme is dark.

A dark, humid limestone cave in Tasmania is the perfect place to look for glow-worms. 

Glow worms are not really worms, but the luminous larval stage of a fungus gnat. One can only assume that the misnomer  is due to the fact that glow-worm sounds more aesthetically pleasing than glow-larva.

Glow-worms can be found in the rainforests, caves and abandoned gold mines of Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania. 

The small insects do glow as a result of chemical reaction in their abdomen produces a cold blue light. 

The bioluminescent taillight is used to lure insects to the glow-worm's elaborate traps which consist of anywhere between 10 to 50 plus vertical hanging threads of silk studded with sticky droplets of mucous.

The life cycle of a glow worm involves four stages: egg, larva, pupa and adult fly.  Eggs are laid in small batches directly onto the walls of the site. Depending on the seasonal conditions at the time of egg-laying, the emergence of larvae from the eggs can take anywhere from three to six weeks to hatch. Due to the proximity of eggs laid in each small batch, cannibalism is common if there is a lack of an alternative food source for the larvae.