Illuminating the nightly skies

Posted by paul on August 31st, 2008 filed in Living here, Locals

Last Tuesday, Thailand launched the globe’s first international firefly symposium, attracting 100 firefly enthusiasts and experts from each part of the world to share their discoveries on the little creatures’ wild nightlife.

An enzyme known as luciferase (from the name Lucifer), creates the firefly’s glow. This enzyme is broken down in the fly’s body by oxygen and nitride oxide, creating the illumination. For years scientists have been doing research on the firefly to figure out if the glow might have industrial or medical uses, but no one before had organised a symposium which focused exclusively on these species.

To mark the Queen’s 76th birthday, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment decided to host the globe’s first “exclusively firefly symposium” in the northern city of Chiang Mai. In 1996 the Queen, who is reputed for her environmental works, donated two million baht to science to study fireflies in Thailand as an indicator of the environment’s state.

 

Along the Chao Praya River’s banks between Ayutthaya and Bangkok firefly swarms were abundant just 20 years ago, but pollution, urbanisation and deforestation have banished the nocturnal creatures from the capital for years. Today, Bangkok’s only flashing is created by the red-light districts.