This story was originally Appeared in Atlas Obscura is part of climate desk collaboration.
At the third meeting, Moriyama Firefly Forest Museum8 weeks of Firefly course, an adult conservation training program, egg collection begins.each female genji fire Fly, Nipponorciola cruciata, You can place up to 500 Carefully place the caviar-like spheres on the mossy river or stream bank with a buff blanket.
Only a few eggs survive in the wild. river pollutionflood control measures, overfishing, excessive urban lighting Devastated Insect populations in the 20th century. At the museum, however, artificial breeding and rearing methods have allowed 30,000 Genji fireflies to grow into larvae, which then live like little voracious underwater explorers.
Ten students from the Firefly course visit the museum each month to learn about Genji’s breeding and husbandry techniques, as well as its main food source, freshwater. snails (Chiariidae). “We need hundreds of thousands of snails to feed the larvae,” explains Michio Furukawa, director of the Firefly Forest Museum and firefly course instructor. These help fireflies multiply up to 20-fold from birth to maturity, growing in length from the thickness of a grain of rice to the diameter of a dime.
By the student’s seventh meeting, about 5,000 chicks will have lived long enough to be released from the breeding tanks into the museum’s artificial river in February. Only the strongest of the population can reach the final stage of adulthood, the stage of brilliance.
When the Moriyama City Firefly Forest Museum first opened 30 years ago, the future of the revered Genji firefly looked bleak. More than 60 years after conservationists in Japan noticed the firefly’s glow was gone, its population was just beginning to recover. It wasn’t always like that, especially in Moriyama. Rapids river and pristine embankment It was built as an ideal habitat for Genji.
in Japan, fireflies have long been a harbinger of summer, taking to the skies in June and July, dancing a flickering courtship dance and lighting up the night. Moriyama’s Genji was particularly prized for its bright yellow-green glow, attracting tourists from all over the country at least by his mid-19th century.
But eventually, intrepid entrepreneurs realized they could make more money by catching tiny insects from Moriyama and transporting them to populated areas like: Osaka, Kyotoand Tokyo It is possible than waiting for city people to come to me. Throughout Japan’s Meiji era, which lasted from 1868 to his 1912, commercial firefly industry It devoured colonies coming out of Moriyama’s waterway.
In just one night, one firefly hunt Capable of capturing up to 3,000 fish Scraping the ground with a bamboo brush against the shoal of prey, they startled the spawning Genji, who had just mated, from the river bank. The next morning, the insects were carefully packed and shipped out to form glittering decorations in luxury hotels, restaurants and private gardens. Moriyama fireflies have been honored for many years to be presented to Emperor Meiji as a precious gift in Japanese culture. It symbolizes passion and the fleeting impermanence of all living things..
