✨✨✨🌃 Night Sky Mimicry ✨✨✨ 🌃

I have shared some really crazy examples of mimicry from the animal kingdom in the past months... But this one is probably the most...beautiful! And ok, I know it's not actual mimicry but that's the first thing that popped in my mind when I first heard about these critters on some random Reddit post a few days ago.

So..today's star is Arachnocampa luminosa. And when I say star, I am a bit literal, as these creatures look like the night sky in their natural environment!

Commonly known as the New Zealand glowworm or just glowworm, they are a species of fungus gnat (small flying insects) endemic to the caves of New Zealand.

Now, like you'd expect, these insects start their life as eggs. These eggs are deposited on the roof of a cave. Once they hatch, the puppae start building their nest out of silk. And once they finish the nest they start making long sticky threads of silk around it, essentially traps for unsuspecting prey.

The larva spins a nest out of silk on the ceiling of the cave and then hangs down up to 30 silk threads along which it regularly places small sticky droplets

And then it's show time! To attract the prey they start glowing...And the result is just...Beautiful:

source

Adults are also known to glow (although to a lesser extent) but why they do that is unknown. A theory is that it maybe be a part of a mating ritual or something. Or it could may as well be a leftover trait from the previous developmental stage, that serves no purpose.

Here's how they look like:

1280px-New_Zealand_Gloworm_(Arachnocampa_luminosa)_-_OMNZ_IV106827_01.jpg
Arachnocampa luminosa adult source