Today I joined a tour that took me to two of the things I wanted to see on the north island.
First was the famous Glow Worm Caves. There are apparently several places in NZed you can see glow worms, but this is the most famous and where the bus was going. So here I am.
So, what are glow worms? The scientific names for the glowworms is Arachnocampa Luminosa.
Yes, now you know everything you need to know.
They are not worms. That is important and gross at the same time, because they are really the larvae of fungus gnats.
Apparently if you get close enough and care enough to examine them, they are an insect that looks similar to mosquitos, and when they reach maturity, they become flies.
So, to add to the fun of this they are carnivorous fungus gnats. That means they eat insects smaller than them. The glow worms catch their prey by hanging silk threads vertically which are covered in a sticky mucus that entraps the insect.
They create light through their tail with a process called bioluminescence. An enzyme reaction including luciferase and various other chemicals and components happens in an organ similar to human kidneys.
Weird.
A female only lives for up to 76 hours after reaching the adult stage of life. Males oddly live longer. 96 hours.
An adult will lay around 100 eggs, which hatch larvae about 3 weeks later.
The larvae grow for 6 to 9 months, until it is 3 – 4 centimeters long. Once mature, they turn into pupa, making a cocoon and hanging around (ha! laugh with me.) for 2 or so weeks. After that, they leave the cocoon as an adult fly.
Once they are adults, they don’t have the burdens we humans have. Their sole purpose is sex and babies. They do not eat, drink, any of the fun and fattening stuff because they only have a few days to live. Just mate and lay eggs. Then they die.
So, what you see hanging from the caves is the larvae. The glowing is them attracting unsuspecting insects who think they have found a way out of the cave because they see light, so they fly into the sticky stuff, not unlike spider webs, and get devoured.
And that is everything I know about glowworms.
There was an amusing moment in the cave for those who understood what was happening, of which I was thankfully one.
At a certain point there is an area called the cathedral. It is called this because the acoustics are excellent for singing, and it does not echo through the caves, but the sound amplifies and stays in the area. Don’t ask me for specifics, it was obvious the guide was reciting from a script, so I did not go into the science.
Anyway, the tours stop at this point, and the guide asks if anyone has a birthday (the previous group sang happy birthday to someone in their tour).
No one had a birthday, so she asked for suggested songs and someone suggested “old McDonald.” The guide thought that was the funniest thing she had ever heard and asked if everyone knew the song since there were many nationalities represented. Everyone did, so we sang “Old McDonald.”
When we got to the part about what animal he had, the woman who suggested the song, said “Duck,” so we all sang ‘with a quack quack here…”
Which is freeking hilarious if you put together the facts that for some reason, I don’t know if true or not because I have never tested the theory, ducks quacks do not echo. And we were standing in a chamber which does not echo.
I laughed. A few others laughed. Many did not know what we were laughing about. Anyway, that was fun for me, because for once, I got the joke.
After the echo event, we loaded onto boats and floated in silence through the rest of the cave to observe the glow worms. No pictures allowed, as I mentioned, but we eventually emerged to a very nice cove.
And that was the Glow Worm Cave experience.
