Q INSECTS Do street lightsl interfere withw glow-worm ms?

AYes. Male glow-wor rms find the non-flying females by theirt green glow. This cold light is producedp by the chemical metab bolism of a complex energy-storing molecu ule luciferin, by a special enzyme luciferase, andd is the opposite of photosynthesis, releasing light photons into the night sky. Like moths, male glow-worms are attracted to artificial lights, which appear to confuse their navigation. The worry is that excessive lighting will distract them, preventing them from finding the females in the rough, grassy banks where they breed. Recent experiments in a small Swiss town found that when road lighting was on, simple LED traps only received males in dark areas far from lamp posts, but when the lights were off, males occurred in all areas. The current thinking is that street lighting cuts ‘cheese holes’ in the

beetles’ mating landscape.