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Allen Yow goes after an elusive green-flashing firefly during a firefly walk in Jacksonville. 

Allen Yow examines a specimen he captured during a firefly walk at Emma Mae Leonhard Wildlife Sanctuary.

A green-flashing firefly lights up as Allen Yow gets close to it.

Allen Yow leads a group on a firefly walk at Emma Mae Leonhard Wildlife Sanctuary in Jacksonville.  

Six years ago, Allen Yow of Jacksonville had an illuminating experience that has stayed with him to this day.

“I was in the yard one evening in the summer of 2016 and I saw a firefly display, a flashing pattern that was completely different from what I had ever seen,” Yow said. “I was used to the regular fireflies that we catch as children, but that was not a single flash. This was a flash, flash, flash. It was a flash pattern.”

The light bulb of realization had been lit, and Yow became hooked on fireflies.

 “The next summer I decided to pay a little more attention and, honestly, I was kind of blown away,” Yow said. “We have several different firefly species with different colors of flashes. It was not just the yellow that we are used to but there were green and dark green flashes and glows.” 

“I dragged my kids outside and said ‘hey, take a look at this'!” Yow said. “And I thought, where have I been for the last 50-plus years that I had not observed this. And this was just in town in my backyard.”

Those evening epiphanies several summers ago have blossomed into a major pursuit for Yow, who now teams up with the Morgan County Audubon Society to hold firefly festivals in his yard and to conduct firefly walks in the Jacksonville area.

On one recent evening at Emma Mae Leonhard Wildlife Sanctuary at Jacksonville’s Lake Mauvaisterre, Yow led a group of lightning bug fans on a journey of discovery as they observed several species of the benign, glowing and flashing insect in its natural environment.

“It exposes people to what most folks have an interest in but really don’t know anything about,” Yow said. “That’s one thing I think we can agree on in our community without division, is that fireflies are neat.”

Yow has been a bird watcher for more than 40 years and has always had a general interest in nature. He knew there were different species of fireflies but really didn’t give it much thought until that night in his yard when he witnessed the varied firefly colors and patterns that really piqued his interest.

“I wanted to learn more, but I was kind of surprised that I couldn’t find very much information in Illinois about the different firefly species,” Yow said. “I found a book that led me to make contact with some people that actually study fireflies. They have been very kind to share information and images, to provide me with material so I can give visual programs.”

One expert, Radim Schreiber of Fairfield, Iowa, has been particularly helpful to Yow. Schreiber is internationally known for his cinematic and photographic work with fireflies.

“He actually dropped by the Emma Mae Leonhard Wildlife Sanctuary in 2018 on his way back from the Smoky Mountains,” Yow said. “He went out there with me and spent a couple of hours filming and photographing the fireflies.”

Call them fireflies, lightning bugs, glow worms or moon bugs, Yow said they’re all the same, and their unique illumination ability is the result of a complicated chemical reaction. That chemical reaction has a cause, and it’s one with which we are all familiar — finding a mate.

“The ones you see flying are males, they are patrolling the area and flashing,” Yow said. “A female of the same species, if she’s interested, will give a corresponding flash. It’s a different flash than what the male has, but each species recognizes its own respective flashes.

“They see each other’s flashes and there’s a little interplay. If he’s interested, he will go down to the ground because females are typically in leaf litter or on a branch, something low to the ground.”

Not all fireflies flash as adults; some emit pheromones, Yow said. But they may glow as larva, which meets one of the conditions to be considered part of the firefly family.

The firefly flashing also warns predators. Fireflies contain toxins that will make other animals sick if they consume them, so the light also is a warning device, Yow said.   Different firefly species come out at different times of night, fly at different heights, and give different flash patterns and colors.  

“It’s really interesting to see the transition from the yellow fireflies around dusk to those that demonstrate green glows and flashes after dark,” Yow said.

His firefly affinity has provided Yow with some other-wordly moments, particularly when he finds Chinese Lantern Fireflies, which emit a long, green glow and fly very slowly. “I was walking in the Emma Mae Leonhard Wildlife Sanctuary, I came over a hill, and the entire forest was lit up with these slowly moving, ghostly looking green glows,” Yow said. “It was kind of humbling. It was a reassurance that we we really do have valuable nature here, we do have wonders, and it doesn’t cost anything to enjoy them.”

But there are fewer fireflies to enjoy, Yow said, because they gradually are experiencing a loss of habitat as wetlands are drained and residential development continues.

Yow has lived in Jacksonville since 1969. His “day job” is as an attorney with Rammelkamp Bradney, PC. Just like his paid profession, the study of fireflies has been interesting and fulfilling, he said.  

“It’s all armchair science but it’s been fun,” Yow said. “It’s a challenge to try to identify these species and, just when I think I have a handle on it, I don’t.

“Fireflies aren’t pests, they don’t bother us. They just bring joy to everyone.”

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