A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.
Rules
This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.
I know a girl in south carolina who wasn't from there; she saw lightning bugs for the first time there one summer and she started crying. I find that story very touching- its a reminder not to be blind to the beauty of the world, even if that beauty is so common that it's unremarkable.
Is no one going to point out that it looks like Sauron's eye between the index and middle fingers?
No fireflies where I live, but that doesn't mean my childhood was free of a beautiful insect swarm.
My area had a bad outbreak of cockchafers I got to enjoy.
I have never heard of that insect.
Despite the name and status as a pest (they are literally European scarabs), I feel nostalgic whenever I see one. Farmers ruthlessly fought them, so there hasn't been a swarming event here in at least 20 years.
And an equally beautiful name for that fine insect
I grew up calling them lightning bugs, and I'm so excited to see a thread full of people calling them the same!
In German, they're Glühwürmchen ("glow worms").
Wait hold up, in Dutch we have glimwormen ("shimmer worms" ) but those don't fly! They're actual bioluminecent worms.
Aren't German Glühwürmchen the same thing?
Glühwürmchen definitely refers to the flying variant. Might also refer to non flying species but I’ve never seen or heard anyone talk about any of those. The term is probably just used for any type of glowing insect, no matter if worm or bug.
My mom grew up in an area of California with no fireflies. When she was a teenager, she went on a cross-country trip with a friend. In the mountains of North Carolina, they were driving along at night when some bugs hit the windshield of their car. They didn't think much of it... until the bug guts started glowing. Then they screamed.
One of the cool things about living in Ohio for a couple years, didn't exist in Texas where I was raised.
Also significantly fewer roaches. In my experience they're more common in the south due to the warmer weather
Mayflys tho, that was something I hadn't even conceived of lol
