The most brilliant animal luminescence known is that of the carbuncle beetles of Puerto Rico. They emit a light so brilliant that one or two inside an inverted tumbler illuminate a room of moderate size so that one can read a newspaper at night. Fields are illuminated brilliantly every night by these beetles, flying about a foot above the ground. The light is not intermittent, and seems nearly continuous. It varies from yellow to green for different species; occasionally it is yellowish-red.
Rainstorms of Worms
Rains of worms often have been reported. After a summer shower surfaces of puddles sometimes will be found covered with countless thread worms or nematodes. These worms have just come out of the bodies of water beetles and other insects, where they have developed as parasites. Before the shower the insects were dormant. These little worms in farm watering troughs led to the long-held belief that horsehairs sometimes changed into worms.
This does not, however, explain the following report in the Levant Times, an English newspaper published in Constantinople, of August 6, 1872:
“A letter from Bucharest reports a curious atmospheric phenomenon which happened there on the 25th ult. a quarter past nine in the evening. During the day the heat had been stifling and the sky was cloudless. In the evening everybody went out walking and the gardens were crowded. The ladies were mostly dressed in white, low-necked robes.
“Toward nine o’clock a small cloud appeared on the horizon and a quarter of an hour afterwards rain began to fall which, to the horror of everybody was found to consist of black worms the size of ordinary flies. All the streets of Bucharest were strewn with these curious animals.”
The Icy Arctic Wonderland
Abundant and fantastic are the creatures of the shallow Arctic sea bottom. All are invertebrates—worms, sea anemones and a host of other creatures—most of whom spend their lives buried in the mud.
Some of the creatures and their curious ways of life:
Ribbon worms which, when washed ashore, literally tie themselves in knots, curl up in balls, and secrete bags of mucous around themselves.