Bat signal: Fireflies’ glow tells bats they taste awful

WASHINGTON — Fireflies flash not just for sex, but survival, a new study suggests.

Scientists wanted to find out if there’s more to the lightning bug’s signature blinking glow than finding a mate. Some experts had speculated it was a glaring signal to predators, like bats, that fireflies taste bad.

To test out whether the glow acted like a flashing bad Yelp review, researchers at Boise State University put bats and fireflies in front of high-speed cameras.

They published their results in Wednesday’s journal Science Advances.

The painstaking experiment required researchers to introduce western bats, which had never seen lightning bugs before, to the insects.

Later, they hand-painted firefly bellies black, essentially turning off their night lights, avoiding the holes the critters breathe through.

When the bats first saw the unfamiliar lit-up fireflies, they swooped in and munched on them, only to get a bad taste in their mouths.

“They shake their heads, salivate and spit and generally despise their caretakers for giving such a rude meal,” said study author Jesse Barber, a biology professor at Boise State.

After a few tries, the bats then avoided the glowing fireflies.

Despite the popular misconception, bats are not blind, one of the authors of the study said.

Once the fireflies essentially taught bats that they taste bad, Barber and colleagues introduced the darkened fireflies. About 40 per cent of the painted ones were munched, while none of the normal fireflies were eaten.

Scientists also think the way lightning bugs fly signals what they are.

To test that, they put fireflies on fishing lines to change how they flew and the bats went after them, despite already knowing that fireflies don’t taste good.