Abstract
THE power of emitting light at night is a property that has been developed to varying extent in many different branches of the animal kingdom. We find it, for instance, in the Protozoa, e.g. Noctiluca, an organism which, though microscopic in size, is sometimes present in such countless millions on the surface waters of the ocean as to make the whole sea appear to be ablaze with a pale, cold, “phosphorescent” light. Higher in the animal scale we find the property well developed in the Hydrozoa, e.g. Pyro-sorna, a colonial oceanic form. We have it again in numerous molluscs, in the insects, and even in the vertebrates, a large number of the fish that inhabit the abysmal depths of ocean, where the sun's rays can never penetrate, carrying their own lamps disposed about their bodies in patterns that vary according to the species. Here, however, I propose to consider only the insects that exhibit this power.
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From a paper read before the South London Entomological and Natural History Society by K. G. Blair .
Canad. Entom., 1910, pp. 357â“363; 1911, pp. 309â“406; 1912, p. 73 and pp. 303â“312.
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Haase, Sitzung. Nature. Ges. Isis., p. 101 and Deutsche Ent. Zeit., xxxii., p. 154; âCamb. Nat. Hit. Ins.â part ii., p. 251.
Ent. Mo. Mag., xxiv., 1887, p. 148.
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Luminous Insects 1 . Nature 96, 411–415 (1915). https://doi.org/10.1038/096411a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/096411a0
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