lightning bug resurgence

They used to rise from the lawns and fields by the tens of thousands on summer nights. If memory serves, they all appear simultaneously for the first time on the same night.

Then they dwindled to almost nothing, and lawn chemicals were widely blamed for this near-extinction.

But now I am pleased to note that they are back. I first noticed a few in Iowa City, enough to make an impression. Then there were quite a lot in the Kansas City area. And now, I can see that more rural Iowa is getting back to a healthy population of them. It’s still not at previous levels, but a reassuring sign of the ability of non-human species to bounce back from our excesses. Whether this came from some sort of chemical ban, or is the result of increased immunity by the few survivors, I can’t begin to say.