Where they still glow
Each pulse is a confirmed sighting shared by someone like you. Tap anywhere on the map to drop a pin for a place you've seen fireflies, then add the details below.
Dark map tiles from CARTO / OpenStreetMap. Use the layers menu to switch base maps, the location button to jump to your location, or click anywhere to geo-tag a sighting.
Log a sighting
Only log fireflies you saw yourself and are confident about. Confirmed, careful records are what make this data worth protecting a place over.
An unidentified sighting is still valuable data. Note the flash colour, rhythm, and habitat — experts can often ID from that.
A field guide to living light
Over 2,000 firefly species glow worldwide — beetles, not flies. Each genus has its own flash "language." Here are the ones you're most likely to meet.
Common eastern
The classic backyard 'lightning bug'. Males trace a distinctive J-shaped swoop with a warm yellow flash on summer evenings.
Read the full profile →Mangrove synchronous
Southeast Asia's marvel — thousands gather in mangrove trees and flash in unison, whole trees pulsing together like a heartbeat.
Read the full profile →Asian firefly
Widespread across Asia's rice paddies and rivers. Quick, greenish flashes low over water and wet fields at dusk.
Read the full profile →Common glow-worm
The wingless female glows a steady green from the grass to call flying males — a continuous lantern, not a flash.
Read the full profile →Blue ghost
Instead of blinking, males drift low through Appalachian forests holding a steady, eerie blue-white light.
Read the full profile →The firefly feed
Films, footage, photos, and reading about fireflies and the people working to save them. A calm place to fall back in love with the light.
Fireflies glowing in sync to attract mates
Thousands of fireflies flashing in perfect unison — one of nature's most extraordinary displays.
Fireflies are disappearing — here's why
The leading invertebrate-conservation group on the threats fireflies face and their work to protect them.
A firefly light show in the national parks
Inside the parks where synchronous fireflies draw crowds for a few magical nights each year.
How to make your yard a firefly haven
Practical, tonight-actionable steps: lighting, water, leaf litter, and skipping the pesticides.
How fireflies synchronize their flashing
The surprising science behind whole hillsides of fireflies blinking as one.
Fireflies of Southeast Asia's mangroves
The synchronous mangrove fireflies (Pteroptyx) that gather in riverside trees across the region.
What's putting the light out
Firefly decline isn't a mystery — scientists have named the causes, and each one is something people can act on.
Light pollution
Fireflies flash to find mates. Artificial light at night drowns out their signals, so they can't find each other and can't breed. It's the threat most directly tied to the glow itself — and the one a single porch light can worsen or a single dark yard can ease.
Habitat loss
Larvae need damp ground — riverbanks, wetlands, mangroves, leaf litter — for the year or more they spend growing before they ever glow. Drainage, development, and tidy lawns erase exactly the messy wet places they depend on.
Pesticides
Firefly larvae are ground predators that eat snails, slugs, and worms. Broad-spectrum insecticides kill the larvae directly and wipe out the prey they need. Gardens kept chemical-free become refuges.
Water pollution
Many larvae grow in or beside streams, marshes, and rice paddies, tied to the water around them. Fertiliser runoff, sewage, and chemical spills poison these nurseries long before the adults would ever light up.
Climate change
Drought dries out the damp ground larvae depend on, and heat and shifting seasons throw off the timing of their brief adult glow. Rising seas and fiercer storms are eroding the mangroves where synchronous fireflies gather.
How you help
Turn off outdoor lights in summer. Leave part of a yard wild and damp. Skip the pesticides. Don't over-collect. And log what you see here — protection follows data, and a place nobody recorded is a place nobody defends.
Help keep the fireflies mapped
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- A live domain and reliable hosting
- Servers and the sightings database
- Community firefly-watching drives and campaigns
- Supporting students and researchers
- …and everything else it takes to protect the glow
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