northern California glow Worms

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If you have ever seen a northern California glow worm in a Redwood Forest they look a lot like the above picture. I (up until right now) had only seen one before in my life when I stopped at night for relief in a redwood forest in the dark and saw one years ago now near Redway, California. But tonight I had no idea they also lived in the forest where I live because I didn't know they lived here before. Most of the time you don't look for something if you don't know it's there. But, it's true that about 10 to 15% of the trees around here are Redwoods where I live on the coast. The rest is mostly a pine forest with also oaks and manzinita and ferns. However, this is the first time (I have lived here since 1999) that I saw about 5 blue glow worms in the trees. I think the blue light is a mating thing sort of like when crickets or frogs make different sounds. So, I saw at least 5 tonight near the tops of pine trees. Amazing!

So, they must be mating in this forest this time of year or something. Below is a single glow worm and what it looks like in pitch dark.

My daughter was out on the trampoline tonight and asked whether we have fireflies so my wife and I went out and told her these were blue glow worms that usually live in Redwood forests. But, tonight they were high up in pine trees.  about 5 of them in 2 or 3 trees.


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If you want to see more of these kinds of images go to Google images and type in "Northern California Glow Worms"

I can also remember climbing high in the Himalayas in late Winter 1986 (March) and we were carrying our backpacks likely about 10 miles or more that day to the next remote village too rugged for any roads across suspension bridges across rivers between canyons and high mountains and it was about dusk and we were walking into a village we were going to rent a room for the night in and we begin to think we were seeing things. These were the first Himalayan Fireflies I had ever seen and because I live in California I had never seen East Coast fireflies ever either. So, this was an amazing experience seeing something you have never seen ever before in person.

This is a photo under the heading at Google images "Himalayan Fireflies" the first is likely a picture of the fireflies like I saw and the second is likely an artist's rendering.