The Mystery of Synchronous Fireflies - Smarter Every Day 274

Hey, it's me, Destin. Welcome back to Smarter Every Day. I grew up here in Alabama, like most kids in the area, learning how to catch lightning bugs and putting them in a jar. It's a magical memory that most of a share. But today, on Smarter Every Day, we're going to try to capture that childlike joy in a new way because we've been invited to do something very, very special. Let's throw the family in the car and let's go get smarter every day.

Hey, I'm Destin. How's it going? Nice to meet you. So, this is Robin Taylor. He invited me to come see the synchronous fireflies that I've never heard of.

Destin: What do they do?
Robin: They synchronize their blinks.
Destin: On or off?
Robin: Well, both, actually.
Destin: That all turn on?
Robin: No, they turn. They will. The whole forest will turn on. They'll blink at the same time.
Destin: Really?
Robin: And they'll go off, and then they'll blink at the same time.
Destin: I didn't know that was a thing.
Robin: That's the thing.

Destin: The fireflies love the moist hardwood forest?
Robin: And we, this species is pretty rare. We just found these about four years ago, just because we weren't looking. I thought I'd seen a couple out here before at a house that was improved, and they cut down all the trees. So my son and I just said, well, let's go check out upstream.
Destin: And they were there?
Robin: And they were there. And it's getting bigger every year.

Destin: All right, let's do it. All right, you ready? All right. Who's out?
Robin: Is this everybody?
Destin: This is everybody?
Robin: OK, let's go find some. You do? I've got four or five flashlights, right?
Destin: I feel like we're on an adventure?
Robin: We are. Like Jurassic Park.
Robin: Jurassic bug! Haha.
Destin: This feels a little bit magic, doesn't it?
Destin's Daughter: YEAH! Are the fireflies only going to be out at dark?
Destin: Yes... this feels like a real adventure going off road.
Destin's Son: Oh! I saw a firefly!
Destin: Did you really? Guys, you all know how beautiful Alabama is. As soon as we get in the woods, I realized it was very, very dark. So I just adjusted the shutter speed on the camera, which made some of the video look really blurry.

Robin: Last couple of nights, this area on this side of the hill has been going pretty good.
Destin: OK. We've got all these fireflies that are going to come out, so don't turn your lights on to Mr. Robin says so. So we're kind of in his house, ok?
Robin: We're in the Lord's house.
Destin: We are in the Lord's house.

Destin's Daughter: Why is your light on?
Destin: Is it on? It's a camera. I'm sorry.
Robin: I don't understand nature. I mean, these things will be dormant. I mean, just you won't see anything. And all of a sudden, somehow they know when to start rising.
Destin: Really?
Robin: Yes. They'll just all of a sudden, they'll start coming up.
Destin: That was weird. I've never seen that.
Robin: What happened? There's a firefly right there. Look at him blinking.
Robin: He's going crazy.
Destin: Is that normal?
Robin: Yeah.
Destin: That's normal.
Robin: Yeah. They're going to. And it may be a snappy sync or not. We got some behind us.
Destin: Do you see the one to your left? He's is directly to your left.
Robin: Right there.
Destin: Yeah. Oh, interesting. The camera can't see it. How interesting.

So this is the camera I was using that night, and I use it all the time, but it doesn't record things in the darkness very well. So in order to show you what I was seeing, I want to make a few lightning bugs and do a little visual display.

All right. Here they are. You ready for this? I'm so excited about this. OK, so this is a stick, and this is a lightning bug, and this is fishing line. So this is what I grew up thinking lightning bugs did. They would flash in such a way where they would kind of ramp up and then they would sustain that light for a short period of time and then they would fizzle out. They would kind of burn out. So that would be the signature—I'm calling it the light signature—of the lightning bugs that I used to see growing up.

So I thought, this is what all lightning bugs did. However, this is what I saw in the woods with Robin. So we've got a second lightning bug here on the other end of the stick just because it's fun. This is what it looked like that night. This lightning bug was more interesting. It would just flash quickly, and it was like on, off, on, off, on, off. And it was a continuous pulse, but it happened over and over and over. Whereas this one over here was more of a slow pulse. This one was just flashing rapidly, which I thought was really interesting.

It was this moment in my life that I realized there are different flash patterns for lightning bugs. This is something I didn't know as an adult. So this is a pretty cool aha moment. I bought this book by Lynn Foust. She's an expert in fireflies and has a really cool graph on the inside that shows you all the different firefly species and their different flash patterns. Isn't that awesome? So you can see that different ones do different things. And the one that we are seeing here is this one right here for tourists, Antalya. So you can see pulse, pulse, pulse, pulse. I think this is amazing. So that's what I saw, and that's why I was so excited in the woods.

And the challenge now is to figure out how to use a camera to show you what I'm seeing.

Destin: Do you see them?
Destin's Daughter: I came up here because I saw a whole bunch down there.
Destin: Where?
Destin: Really?
Robin: Down in here.
Destin: Oh, I see them, too. They're starting to wake up, aren't they? I can already tell the cameras aren't going to do this justice. They're all around us.
Robin: Yeah, I think they're going to come up everywhere.
Destin: Look right there. Oh, my goodness. Are you serious? Look up there. Do you see that?

Destin's Son: Sir?
Destin: They're synchronizing. So the video cameras I was using just really couldn't pick it up, so I started taking long exposure photo shots with both my film camera and my digital camera.

And these long exposure photos allow the light over a number of seconds or even minutes to reach the film or the sensor. And this gives you a better idea of how these things were all around us in the forest. But what it doesn't do is convey the blinking or synchronization, which is what was really stunning.

Robin: What they're all around us.
Destin: It's amazing. I mean, you told me exactly what was going to happen, but it's happening. Like, we may be able to film this and not see them and then come back a year from now and see them.
Robin: Yeah.
Destin: You know what I mean? OK, we're back in the woods, and this is Robin. They're starting to come alive back behind you here.

So I returned to this spot a year later with my buddy Trent and some cameras that we rented thanks to the patrons of Smarter Every Day. The goal of these more sensitive cameras is to be able to capture these awesome creatures as they light up the night. They look just like an LED blinking.
Robin: I know.
Destin: It's so fast.
Robin: Yes, you wonder how in the world did they do it? Because some of the people have said, you know, you see the ones as far as you can see in one direction, you look the other direction and they're eventually going to all get in sync. And it's still a mystery as to why they do that.
Destin: And so the question I have is, are they still out of sync? So but you can see that the ones that are most close to each other, they'll start syncing up. Yeah. And then eventually does it spread across the whole.
Robin: Yeah, for sure it will.
Destin: OK, yeah. This is a good spot. You remember last year I had the other cameras that weren't good at darkness. They're great for other things, color and whatnot.

OK, so here's a little guy right here. They don't move that much. One thing that I don't understand is the bioluminescence is chemical. And so they're just giving—like, if you think about this, like a by propellant, rocket propellant. And you touch two chemicals together.
Robin: Yeah.
Destin: They're firing just a minute amount. And when it fires, what happens to the chemistry? That's my next question.
Robin: It's got to be using some energy.
Destin: I would think.

Destin: Man, can you see him lighting up over your buddy?
Trent: Oh, man.
Trent: This is unbelievable. Isn’t that crazy? It's like magic out here.
Destin: OK, so they are different from other fireflies, the ones that are synchronous in the Smokies, they all turn on and they all turn off at the same time. Here's one flying so if I can get in. Where are you at? OK, we got one.

Trent: Take that light away a little bit...
Destin: Oh no I lost him! OH I got him! I was trying so hard.
Trent: Oh, you lost him.
Destin: I just lost him again. We're going to get him. All right. I want to look at your abdomen.
Robin: I still do it. When you come back, I can have you a whole jar of them.
Destin: All right, here we go. I got it. All right. Here we go. I got it. I pick you, OK? The same search algorithm as one of those four works today. You just pick one, you're like, I am dedicated to you, OK? All right, so we're gone.

Trent: That was amazing.
Robin: Turn off the light. It may be still on the ground.
Destin: Oh, he flew up. OK. All right, Robin, I'm making an embarrassment of myself, OK? Be very delicate so we don't damage you. All right?

Hey, ladies, check it out. There's very fast. He's like, dude, if he knew what you're keeping me from right now. OK, I yes, that is very fast. OK, well, let him go. See, let him fly, ok?

Time for the construction paper. Lightning bugs again. I love this so much this time. Got the legs involved, if you can see that. There's a lot happening down here.

All right, so here's the question. How do they synchronize? And the answer is scientists don't know. But what we do know is the synchrony starts in one part of the forest, and then it spreads to other parts of the forest. So here's a question. What would happen if we provided that optical drumbeat, so to speak, by using LEDs in one section of the forest? Would we be able to get them all on the same beat frequency? And how long would it take for them to catch on?

So we tried that with LEDs. We have a function generator right here. We have LEDs that are soldered to a BNC cable, and they're chartreuse LEDs. So they look like the lightning bugs. And that's about the size of a lightning bug abdomen. You know what? We need to compare the approximate size of LED, approximate size of a lightning bug. You got that? Good, because he was done. All right. They looked just like the lightning bugs, man.

It's working. Do you see that? Am I making that up or is it actually working on the left side of the creek over here?
Trent: I see it, too, dude.
Destin: It is totally working. Or you see in this?
Robin: I see it. I'm trying to come up with a less scientific explanation about this.
Destin: The camera's not doing it justice at all. We got to figure this out, OK? I'm not crazy. This was actually happening.

This is the function generator that we had out there. This is the mode I had it set in. I'm going to hit run here. And you can see that these things start blinking. This was happening. I don't know why. I just did a really poor job of being able to capture it via video. These are called snappy sync, so I know it was working. So here's how I know it was working because when we ramp it up to like ten Hz or down to three Hz, they broke synchrony. But if we went back to five, they would come back in. I don't know if I have the shutter speed set incorrectly on the camera or what. Or maybe it was a massive case of cognitive bias, but for my money, it felt like it was real, so I would love for this to be studied more in the future.

That being said, the next night we came out with more cameras with the goal of just capturing the beauty of what was going on out here. OK, we're back. We have image stabilization on the camera this time. That's good. This is the cannon image or something. What is it?
Trent: Me20F-SH.
Destin: OK, all that. This is like a see-in-the-dark kind of a camera. It can actually do infrared. This is the other thing we have. It's a pan-tilt unit, and you can set keyframes. So where do you think we should set this up? Based on where they are? Yeah, maybe it's just right. Right here. Right there. OK, we have no idea if this is going to work.

We finished setting up the video camera, and Robin and I started taking still photos as the light started to fade away.
Robin: This is downright magical. This feels like childhood.
Destin: I love it.
Robin: I do too. I've got about four or five in here.
Destin: Yeah, I want to let them slowly crawl out. All right, guys, you're free. Here you go.

I hope you're not upset with my videography in this video, but the truth is, this is one of those things you just have to see. Now, if you want to see it for yourself, you'll be tempted to just Google synchronous fireflies and drive your car straight to the parking lot that Google tells you to go to.

I encourage you not to do that because these things are all over the place. I encourage you to research and figure out when fireflies come out in your area and what environment they like to live in. Once you figure that out, get away from the city lights, find a spot just like Robin did, and go out when it's dark and make observations for yourself.

We just found these about four years ago just because we went looking. If you do that, maybe, just maybe, you'll find a population of synchronous fireflies. There in your area, and you'll be treated to one of the most beautiful displays of light you've ever seen in your entire life.

Destin: You have a childlike wonder about you, don't you?
Robin: I've tried to never grow up. Does that sound weird?
Destin: No, not at all.
Robin: I get that from my dad and his brothers, you know, stay active and just, you know, get out and do things and enjoy yourself.
Destin: Yeah, you're good at it.
Destin: I appreciate it. I'm taking notes.

Robin: This episode of Smarter Every Day is sponsored by Kiwi Co and Kiwi—oh, something landed on me. Oh, it's one of my little boats. I'm just joking. This video is about childlike joy. I hope you feel that. That was kind of what I was trying to communicate with it.

The fact that as you grow up, it's important not to lose that spark. And that's what Kiwi Co does. Kiwi Co is something that my kids have grown up with for years. There are these little boxes that come to your house, and it has all the stuff you need to build a really cool project. And I love it. I like to this day, I still love making simple little things like this, and I like making complex things.

So if you want to instill a sense of joy, of creating things into the hearts of your children or a child you love, please consider going to Kiwi Co dot com slash smarter 50. That gets you 50% off your first month of any crate. There's nine different lines you can choose from, so you can tailor the joyful experience for the kid that you love.

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They're not intimidated when I tell them to do something that's a little bit out of their reach; they just grab the tool, and they go for it. And Kiwi Co has a lot to do with that. So if you'd like to check this out, please consider going to Kiwi Co dot com slash smarter 50. That gets you 50% off the first month of any crate. You're really going to enjoy it.

OK, so this camera is incredibly sensitive, and we'll leave the menus up so you can see what's about to happen. So this is the visible spectrum right now. If we flip it over to infrared, you can see how much brighter it gets. You can see that my pupils are probably real big because I don't really know where I'm looking, but I probably look pretty goofy to get an infrared mode?
Trent: Yeah, it's in!
Destin: OK, do I look stupid?
Trent: Not really.

All right, so check this out. I'm going to try to unlock this phone with face ID, and you'll see the face ID project on my face. You see that? Because I can't. That's pretty cool. So I'll unlock it, and this is pretty cool, too. The 3D laser scanner on an iPhone, I can't see this, but it can see it.

And so I'm assuming you're seeing stuff on my face.
Trent: One moment for me.
Destin: Are you adjusting it?
Trent: Yep.
Destin: I can't see anything. Can you see that?
Trent: Yeah. OK, so infrared is pretty cool.

This camera is amazing. Also, I can still see all the lightning bugs around me. Oh, I'll get out of the way. If you can see the lightning this—look at that. Can you see them? Oh, it's not focused. OK, we'll work on that and get you some better images.

One last thing. This is really surprising to me, but almost 70,000 people have signed up for the Smarter Every Day email list, which just totally blows my mind. That is amazing. Apparently, emails getting it done these days. I keep it simple. I don't spam you because I don't like spam email. All I do is when I upload a new video, I send you the link. It's that simple.

So if you're into that, then I will send you emails. If you go to the Smarter Every Day dot com website, there's a link to the email list up there, or I'll leave the link to the email list down in the video description. But I'm really kind of interested in this whole email resurgence thing. It's pretty interesting—so no pressure at all. But if you're into that, that is now an option, and I appreciate it.

Thank you to you for watching this video. I am grateful. Thank you to all the patrons that support Smarter Every Day and allowed me to rent these cameras. I'm grateful. I'm Destin. You're getting smarter every day. Have a good one. Bye.