Look at all these clips of frogs and toads eating fireflies, and afterwards flickering and glowing as the insects continue to strobe their tail-lights while inside their guts. Maybe it’s a little bit funny, but I’m wondering how it would affect predation on amphibians — after all, it’s night, and now the frog has switched on an internal light.
I’m also imagining the poor doomed bug shrieking, “Towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying but unconquering frog; to the last I grapple with thee; from hell’s heart I stab at thee; for hate’s sake I spit my last breath at thee.” They’re desperately signaling for anyone to come, calling down hell on their tormentor.
At last I understand where ET got his “heart light.”
I think this is more horrible than you’re guessing. Fireflies are poisonous at least a lot of the time. They can kill pet lizards, and searching finds reports of frogs dying from them too. Maybe some are more resilient than others? But it seems to me like this is probably a reel of animals being sickened or killed by people who don’t know the danger.
They did this in the latest King Kong movie, with John Goodman’s character’s flash camera. (And John Goodman’s character.)
The idea of the light getting all the way out through that sizable creature, in broad daylight, was much harder for me to swallow than John Goodman was for the Skull Crawler.
I’m sure frog giggers would be happy to answer the firefly’s call. Would’ve been nice to see flounder light up like that the few times I’ve gigged for them. They do however really go for glow in the dark jigs like the D.O.A. shrimp, unless the moon’s really bright. Then you go with something dark to make a stronger silhouette.
Man, it’s been a while since I’ve gone fishing. I hear the trout bite has been good, and the red tide is still a ways south around Sarasota.
I have to wonder about how toxic luciferin is to frogs ?
Any stories about animals in the media, especially those involving the death or damage of an animal, always include a headline with some awful pun, and then jolly text about how funny it is that this has happened. There is never any recognition that animals, all animals, feel pain, and that many animals feel fear, nor any recognition that we are all animals sharing a lonely planet and sharing an evolutionary cousinhood at some level. I search in vain for any feelings of empathy.
DLC @5: If this particular batch of frogs regularly preys on fireflies, it seems likely that they’d have some degree of resistance to being poisoned by them.
The mildly deranged penguin says it isn’t very effective at all. The frongs and fireflies and other critters are trying to avoid peas, but the peas are too stoopid to notice, and continue to attack. This causes much screaming and bushfires, and the occasional stunned pea or roasted frog, but mostly just means sleepless nights as everyone is on alert for peas or dragon-emulating frogs.