BI: v3

FIREFLY LANTERN:  If you were in the glow chamber of a firefly and you looked up, you would see a mirror–a bipedal mirror.  It’s not made out of metal or glass. It’s made out of biomaterials.

FIREFLY LANTERN: If the firefly light would strike the molecules of its abdomen, it would be absorbed and become heat and lose some energy.

“INTERNAL REFLECTION” (Actually “Fresnel reflection”)   On the surface of the cuticle (the outside of the bottom of the abdomen) there are little walls. They are made of chitin, the same material that the exoskeleton of the firefly is made of.  The cuticle “window” is completely transparent.

“INTERNAL REFLECTION” (Actually “Fresnel reflection”)   On a sliding glass door in the daytime,  the image that is seen at night from inside a lit room is not there anymore. The strong sunlight cancels the reflected rays and there are none remaining at all.

FIREFLY LANTERN:   The top of the photocyte light chamber in a firefly’s abdomen is made of the same reflective guanine crystals.  These are also in the tapetum lucidum in dog’s and deer’s  eyes which causes eye shine. 

FIREFLY LANTERN:   A layer in the photocyte light chamber is filled with beach ball-like objects of different sizes. Funny! WHY?  They diffuse–spread out– the 563 nano-meter yellow-green light in all directions so fireflies all over can see their light!

FIREFLY LANTERN:   These balls–peroxisomes–also destroy the hydrochloric acid that the light generates.  If they didn’t do this,  making the firefly light would kill the firefly.

FIREFLY LANTERN:   The clear window (cuticle) on the bottom of the firefly’s abdomen has muscle fibers attached to it. Scientists think these muscles thin and thicken the clear window like how a piece of taffy is stretched.  It can happen in intervals as quick as 1/1600th of a second! 

FIREFLY LANTERN:   The clear window –the clear cuticle–of the firefly’s abdomen also has about 30,000 very precise nano-sized clear walls on its surface. These walls are too small to see. 

FIREFLY LANTERN:   Optical impedance matching keeps the firefly light from being reflected off the clear cuticle window back to the inside of the firefly–like what happens when light goes through your windows at night and you can see your reflection inside the house.  This amazingly stops this reflection!