How Do Fireflies Synchronize Their Flashings? By Looking at Each Other

It's a spectacular summertime display of natural light: thousands of male fireflies flashing together in harmony but how in the world do they know when to synchronize flashings?

New findings by Orit Peleg of the University of Colorado at Boulder and colleagues suggest that individual fireflies know when to flash their lights in unison by ... looking at other fireflies!

When the researchers, for example, put a single male into the pop tent all on his own, that bug would flash without a good sense of rhythm—a few bursts here, a few bursts there. Increase the number of fireflies, however, and things began to change.

“When you start putting 20 fireflies together, that’s when you start observing what you see in the wild,” Sarfati said. “You’ve got regular bursts of flashes, and they’re all synchronized.”

The fireflies, in other words, likely aren’t hardwired to flash with a particular pattern. Instead, their light displays seem to be more social. Bugs watch what their neighbors are doing and try to follow along. The group’s findings, Peleg said, could help researchers learn more about a range of other synchronous behaviors in nature—and maybe one day design swarming robots that act in tandem.

#firefly #synchrony #insect #biology #animalbehavior

Video: Peleg Lab

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