Luminous Plants, Animals, and Stones

Abstract

As a matter of fact, glowworms are not worms at all, but beetles. The female glowworms are wingless and creep about, the males fly. The common glowworm (Lampyris noctiluca) is abundant in some of the southern counties of England and is found in Scotland south of the Tay, but not in Ireland. The luminous organs occupy the last two Segments of the hinder abdomen and contain a substance which, when oxidized, becomes luminous by chemiluminescence. The color of the rays emitted is precisely the one to which our eyes are most sensitive and contains infrared, so that this beetle might be called a really ideal source of light, if only it would shine somewhat brighter!

Tell B that I have crossed the Alps and the Apennines, that I have visited the ‘Jarding des Plantes’, the museum arranged by Buffon, the Louvre with its masterpieces of sculpture and painting, The Luxembourg with the works of Rubens, and that I have seen a glow worm!!!

Letter from Faraday to his mother, Life and Letters