A vocabulary of landscape — a landscape of words
1453 entries
glowworm
A glowworm is a beetle whose wingless female sits in the grass at night with the last segments of her abdomen glowing steadily green, drawing males that fly and do not glow. The light is continuous rather than flashing, which is what separates a glowworm from a firefly. The larvae also glow, and they hunt snails, which they subdue and then eat over several days.
Etymology
The English name is old and inaccurate on both halves, since the animal is a beetle rather than a worm and it is the light that identifies it rather than the shape. English has used worm loosely for anything long and legless, including in its oldest sense, where it meant a serpent or a dragon, which is why the dragons of Northern legend are worms.
Notes
The New Zealand glowworm is something else entirely: the larva of a fungus gnat, which hangs sticky threads from a cave roof and glows to draw insects into them, and the ceilings of the Waitomo caves are covered in them. In Britain glowworm counts have been run by volunteers since the 1990s, and the females are found by walking a fixed route on a warm still night in June.