Our family just got back from an awesome trip to Upstate New York and Pennsylvania, where we got to see many incredible insects. Our favorite is the Pennsylvania state insect, the firefly.

Fireflies or lightning bugs are actually beetles.

firefly beetle

There are many different species of fireflies.  This is a common one in upstate New York. Others may be brown, or brown with red markings. The fireflies in Arizona don’t flash, but are similar in appearance to this one.

I had always wanted to take a picture of fireflies flashing at night. This time I was able to take some long exposure photos (thus the blurriness) of fireflies in flight. See if you can spot them.

firefly flight

firefly flight

I can’t wait until next year. I’m going to try it with a tripod in a better spot.

Do you have any photographs of fireflies? We’d love to see them.

For more information, see:
Absolutely stunning photographs of firefly beetles at Firefly Forest

In a previous post, I answered some questions about fireflies, including what they eat.

Most of you probably already know about the Firefly Watch project, first brought to our attention by DNLee at Urban Science Adventures.

On a similar topic, see:  How Many Fireflies Can You Count in 10 Seconds? at On Living By Learning Blog
http://www.onlivingbylearning.com/2009/06/15/how-many-fireflies-can-you-count-in-10-seconds/