World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments

by Aimee Nezhukumatathil

The buntings know the North Star by heart, learn to look for it in their first summer of life, storing this knowledge to use years later when they first learn to migrate. How they must have spent hours gazing at the star during those nestling nights, peeking out from under their mother. What shines so strong holds them steady.

Porch lights, trucks, buildings, and the harsh glow of streetlamps all complicate matters and discourage fireflies from sending out their love-light signals—meaning fewer firefly larvae are born the next year.

Firefly eggs and larvae are bioluminescent, and the larvae themselves hunt for prey.

Some firefly larvae live completely underwater, their lights fevering just under the surface as they capture and devour aquatic snails.

How I wish I could fold inward and shut down and shake off predators with one touch.

let me and my children and everyone’s children decide who touches them and who touches them not, touch them not, touch them not.

In the next stroke, the squid raises all of its arms over its head in what is called a “pineapple posture.” The underside of these arms is lined with tiny toothlike structures called “cirri”, giving an appearance of fangs ready to bite down on anything that wants to chase it down for a snack.

the vampire squid discharges a luminescent cloud of mucus instead of ink.

But there wasn’t one specific turning point where I stopped trying to disappear. I don’t know how I wiggled out of that solitude, how I made it through the darkest and loneliest year of my youth.

I’d tell him about these giant flowers with a seriously foul smell, and how I tracked them down all over the country as they were just about to bloom. Based upon his reaction, I could tell immediately whether there’d be a second date, or if I’d be ghosting him soon.

Just last week, I read how trees “speak” to each other underground, how they let out warnings of toxins or deforestation. Trees have also been known to form alliances and “friendships” through fungal networks.

Potoos are one of the few birds that never build a nest—males and females take turns warming a single white egg with purple spots settled in a divot of a tree branch. When the baby is born, its feathers are pure white, and when it gets too large to safely hide under a parent, it learns how to freeze just so to resemble a patch of white mushrooms.

Ribbon eels are all born jet black males—they are protandric, changing to female only when necessary to reproduce.

The ribbon eel also has a scruffy yellow goatee on its lower jaw, which stores all its taste buds.

A red-spotted newt spends years wandering the forest floor before it decides which pond to finally call home. When you spend as long as the red-spotted newt does in a search like this, you grow pickier, more discerning, but are never really salty for long.

These citrus-colored newts carry a similar toxin to the deadly chemicals in a blue-ringed octopus or puffer fish. Thanks to these spots, fish leave the newts alone; newts are the only type of salamander that can live in harmony with most aquatic creatures.

Scientists in Indiana recently discovered that newts find their way home by aligning with the earth’s electromagnetic field.

These newts are one of the only amphibians to contain a ferromagnetic mineral in their bodies, and that, combined with their incredible capacity to memorize sun- and starlight patterns to return to their original pond waters, make them an animal on par with salmon for their excellent homing capabilities.

It is this way with wonder: it takes a bit of patience, and it takes putting yourself in the right place at the right time. It requires that we be curious enough to forgo our small distractions in order to find the world.