• Question: what makes fire flies glow

    Asked by anon-174234 to Alex, Carl, Melanie, Tim, Yewande on 20 Jun 2018. This question was also asked by anon-174150.
    • Photo: Carl Barford

      Carl Barford answered on 20 Jun 2018:

      Some plants and animals have chemicals which can send out light, when they get energy delivered to them. So instead of the energy packets making a muscle move, they deliver it to the light emitting molecule

    • Photo: Alex Seeney

      Alex Seeney answered on 20 Jun 2018:

      Fireflies glow because of a chemical reaction called “bioluminescence”. There are specialised organs found in fireflies, and in these organs, a special enzyme called “luciferase” catalyses a reaction to produce light. They use this mainly for selecting a mate, and there are other organisms that do this too.

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