How Fireflies Light Up the Night: New Technique Reveals Details of the Lantern

Have you ever wondered how fireflies shine? These insects light up summer nights, flashing in patterns to communicate to one another within the darkness. Now, scientists have taken a closer look at this bioluminescence, and have found exactly how these lightning bugs manage to light up.

Scientists have long known that fireflies emit light when a compound called luciferin breaks down. Yet this reaction needs oxygen in order to take place. What researchers didn't know was how fireflies actually supplied oxygen to their light-emitting cells.

The firefly's light-producing organ is called the "lantern," which is located in the insect's abdomen. The lantern looks a bit like a series of tubes progressing into smaller ones, rather like a tree's branches growing into twigs. These tubes' function is to supply oxygen to the cells of the lantern, which contain luciferase and can produce light. However, it's been difficult to study the firefly's lantern in depth.

In order to investigate this phenomenon a bit more closely, the researchers employed new imaging techniques. The methods are called synchrontron phase contrast microtomography and transmission x-ray microscopy. This revealed the entire structure of the lantern for the first time, and gave the scientists the opportunity to make quantitative evaluations of oxygen distribution.

The new images revealed that the firefly diverts oxygen from other cellular functions. It then pulls the gas into the reaction that breaks up luciferin. More specifically, the researchers found that oxygen consumption in the cell decreased, slowing down energy production, and at the same time oxygen supply switched to light-emission.

The findings don't just tell us more about fireflies, though. They also show how new techniques are constantly improving and changing the way we view the world. It's likely that these new imaging methods will be used in other studies in the future.

The findings are published in the journal Physical Review Letters.

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