#common eastern firefly

[northerlyy]

Common Eastern Fireflies (Photinus pyralis), taken June 16, 2025, in Georgia, US

Firefly season is now in full swing here! Every night at dusk, fireflies begin flashing in the hundreds. Depending on the location they flash and the time of night, you can usually tell what kinds are flashing. P. pyralis is usually the first to begin, staying low to the ground and flashing every few seconds, followed later by other, smaller Photinus species who fly a little higher. My favorite to watch are the Spring Tree-Top Flashers (Pyractomena borealis) which, as their name suggests, flash up in the tree canopy. I rarely see them during the day (as they roost in the treetops), but they're beautifully numerous at night. They hover high in the air and flash several times in quick succession, often in sync with a couple others around them. Looking up and seeing dozens of fireflies twinkling in the treetops is a wonderful sight!

[onenicebugperday]

@coeli1000 submitted: Found this little friend in my vegetable garden. Some kind of centipede, I’m guessing? I know basically nothing about Myriapoda. Location is [removed] (please do not publish)

Not a centipede! If you flipped it over you’d see it only has six legs because it’s a beetle larva. It’s a firefly, and best educated guess is a common eastern firefly. Cool find! You must have a happy yard if you’ve got fireflies living there :)

[hannahjarema]

𝖋𝖎𝖗𝖊𝖋𝖑𝒚 𝖆𝖕𝖕𝖗𝖊𝖈𝖎𝖆𝖙𝖎𝖔𝖓 𝖕𝖔𝖘𝖙

[flighty-flycatcher]

📍 Location: Wake Forest, North Carolina 🗓 Date: May 13, 2025 🐾 Media: Image 🌿 Species: Common Eastern Firefly (Photinus pyralis) 📝 Notes: Bioluminescent beetle commonly found in fields, forest edges, gardens, and moist grassy habitats during warm summer evenings. Adults produce rhythmic yellow-green flashes used for communication and mate attraction, especially around dusk.

Flight is slow and drifting, often low over grass or open ground. Larvae are predatory and live in soil or leaf litter, feeding on soft-bodied invertebrates such as snails and worms.

🔗 iNaturalist: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/280868917

[dksartz]

Today's Painting is done! Day 3: Photinus Pyralis aka Common Eastern Firefly! :3

I did this one a little differently, the Blue and red-purple in the background are the leaf Mr Firefly is crawling on, and the color and his antenna wrap around the edge/s of the panel :D

I'll do the little dashed border again on the next painting probably and vary between the two styles across the remaining 11 paintings.

*I'm doing a painting challenge for February: 14 small paintings in 28 days, Insects are the theme, ft limited color pallette*

[ravenarisart]

Common Eastern Firefly | Photinus pyralis

Keywords: Flashes of insight. The light within. There’s always more than one answer, more than one idea. Forest inspiration. Night forests. Communication with the light and colour spectrum. Healing light. Nostalgia. The passage of time. Bittersweet. Speaking in code. Having your own special language with loved ones. Beware of burnout. Beware of people stealing your energy. Attracted to danger.

[woozymitts]

Red Milkweed Beetle (Tetraopes tetrophthalmus) European Paper Wasp (Polistes dominula) Common Eastern Firefly (Photinus pyralis)

Some cool buggies from the yard! We’ve got tons of milkweed growing and the bugs are obsessed with it. Haven’t found any caterpillars yet though, but we’ve seen a few monarchs.

Also it’s SO funny seeing people talk about how awful and mean and aggressive wasps are but I can literally open the old wood grill in my yard and shove my macro lens into their nest and the most they ever do is threat posture and stare at me.

[arcticarthropod]

Flight of the firefly.

And a secret rendezvous