Last Saturday evening a friend suddenly called and asked if I'd like to go find fireflies with her family. Of course I said "Yes" as I had never seen a firefly before. We went to an area near the foot of Mt Tsukuba and after an hour or so, found a spot with a few fireflies. I was quite surprised because they were really small! My friend's husband caught one and I held it - it was less than 1cm long. I thought they would be 2 or 3cm :)
The fireflies were on some plants growing in the middle of a small river. I heard they only live in clean water where a certain kind of freshwater shellfish live. Firefly larvae eat the shellfish. Nowadays it is really hard to find such clean water as farmers use pesticides and herbicides. It is such a pity that we are destroying our own environment.
This final picture is one I found on the Internet and it shows you what a firefly looks like in the light. I tried to get a picture of the one we caught, but he moved too quickly!
firefly - 蛍foot of a hill/mountain - ふもと
shellfish - 貝
larvae - (larva is singular) 〔昆〕幼虫;〔動〕幼生(オタマジャクシなど
pesticide - 殺虫剤
herbicide - 除草剤
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