If you glow down to the woods today... the moment fireflies turn woods into an enchanted forest

By Daily Mail Reporter

Fireflies produce a "cold light", with no infrared or ultraviolet frequencies. This chemically-produced light from the lower abdomen may be yellow, green, or pale red


No, these aren't deleted scenes from James Cameron's sci-fi epic Avatar - these spectacular images show mesmerising phosphorescent patterns swirling through a forest that are all produced by earthbound insects.

Amateur photographer and full time physicist Kristian Cvecek spends nights in woodlands waiting for fireflies to come out so he can capture them on camera.

German Kristian, 31, from Erlangan, near Nuremburg, photographs the creatures near his home. He uses slow shutter speeds to capture on camera their movements between the trees and ferns.


Here Kristian has captured the moment that a firefly has alighted on a fir cone in the forest near his home in Erlangen


Fireflies are winged beetles and give off a green luminous glow from chemicals in their lower abdomen in a process called bioluminescence.

As babies - the larval stage of the insects' lives - they use their glow to warn off predators but as adults they use the same phenomenon to attract mates.

He said: 'The fireflies are also called in some regions "'St. John bugs" because they start to fly at around the St. John's Night which is between the 23rd and 24th of June.'


Using a slow shutter speed on the camera makes the fireflies appear to leave ghostly phosphorescent trails between the trees


In Germany, many people celebrate the summer solstice with a bonfire and name it after St John. 'Depending on the weather they can start to fly earlier in the month and fly for around 3-4 weeks' added Kristian.

'As I don't have the opportunity to go into the woods every night, I always have a limited amount of nights to shoot them, so getting the pictures I wanted took a lot of perseverance..'

'They come out between nine and 10 o'clock at night, so it is already quite dark and they show up nicely against the dark background.'


There are some 2,000 species of firefly found in temperate and tropical environments. Most are to be found are in marshes or in wetland environments


There are many different species of firefly, from a variety that produces no light at all to one that imitates the 'mating' light of other species, to lure hopeful males into becoming supper


source :dailymail