GLOW WORM

Jack Schmidling Productions, Inc.
Marengo Illinois

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Anyone old enough to remember the Mills Brothers' song, "Glow Worm" probably had as little notion of what this "aeronautical boll weevil" was as I did.

The glow worm is of course, no worm at all but simply the larva of the much loved firefly. The Golden Guide claims that it is the wingless female of some firefly species but these resemble worms even less. Furthermore, they are usually found crawling through the grass in Spring and not "swimming through the night primeval".

This particular one Marilyn found on the hallway carpet just glowing very dimly for a short period every few minutes. It took awhile to even understand what was going on, it was so dim and irregular.

All attempts to photograph it glowing were unsuccessful. As an astrophotographer capable of bringing a remote galaxy out of the night sky, I consider this an abject failure.