Saturday, October 30, 2010

A Light At The End Of The Tunnel



This week's PhotoHunt theme is dark.
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.

8 comments:

  1. What a beautiful place. It looks eerie but still a wonderful place to visit. Happy weekend

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  2. Very interesting place. Good information and photograph for the theme.

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  3. Thanks for the info. As for the photo: it looks really ghostly... perfect for Halloween season as well as this week's "dark" theme! :)

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  4. Very interesting. I've never seen a glow worm.

    Hope you have a fun and safe Halloween weekend.

    Liz @ MLC

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  5. the place looks kinda eerie but thanks for the info on glow worms.

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  6. Wow, I've never seen a glow-worm but always assumed they were actual worms!

    Have a lovely rest of your weekend :)

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  7. Hi Maya, very cool shot. How interesting that a small insect can create this effect. But not good that they can turn on each other with lack of available food around. :(

    Thanks so much for sharing and have a wonderful weekend.

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  8. Great shot of the cave. I used cave also this week. :) And I didn't know a lot about the glowworms. Thanks for the information.

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