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Whereas "firefly" defines the creature quite literally — as a source of fire, a spark that lights up the fields — the Portuguese vagalume speaks of movement, of a light that drifts and searches. Perhaps it suggests how the creature itself experiences its earthly existence, rather than how the human eye perceives it.
Either way, what moves me most about the old Galician word vagalume is that it now seems to echo the fate of the creature itself. The spilling glow of our modern cities interferes with their fleeting flashes, leaving them to wander in a pale, diluted darkness.
This became especially clear when I met biologist and firefly researcher Stephanie Vaz, whose work I had first encountered in a Mongabay article about the decline of Brazil’s bioluminescent insects. We met at nightfall in Rio de Janeiro; the air was warm and dimly lit as we talked over a refreshing drink about her PhD research.
She and her team found that light pollution has become one of the fastest-growing threats to firefly populations in southeast Brazil. Their bioluminescent pulses — synchronised signals used for communication and courtship — are fading under the glare of human illumination, which radiates deep into the forest canopy. “Light doesn’t stop at the borders,” she told me. “And that’s why protected areas alone are not enough.”
After showing me a tattoo of a firefly on her upper back — inspired by a Photinus species from the Atlantic Forest — she spoke about her ambition to establish a firefly sanctuary in the state of Rio de Janeiro. A place where darkness itself could be preserved, and equally important, where awareness could grow around the effects of light pollution caused by excessive and unconsidered use of artificial light.
Our conversation drifted naturally toward the possibility of collaboration, one that might bridge art, science, and ecology through a shared desire to protect the night and the creatures within it. It felt serendipitous to have met her, after our schedules finally aligned — remarkably, on the very last day of my journey.
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After returning to the Netherlands, filled with inspiration yet exhausted from three months of endless wandering, I found myself asking a simple question: Why should people care about the decline of fireflies when glaciers are melting? When water reserves are drying up? When we are heading toward two degrees above pre-industrial levels with devastating consequences?
It seemed almost trivial at first, a poetic distraction from the world’s greater catastrophes. But the more I thought about it, the more I realised that there isn’t much difference. The loss of fireflies and the loss of ice are two symptoms of the same condition: a world increasingly overexposed, overheated, and out of tune.
The more I studied the vagalume, the more I fell in love with the science behind their charismatic synchronicity. It feels as if they’re telling a story — one about how to produce a light that doesn’t harm, but instead lives in harmony with its surroundings.
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Stephanie Vaz’s research confirmed the logic: where darkness thrives, so do fireflies. With their invaluable quality as bioindicators, their fragile light is not only a signal but also a sign, a measure, of the health of the environments they inhabit. A sharp decline in their numbers indicate broader environmental changes such as degraded soil, and the loss of vegetation and biodiversity. For light pollution, it is clear that their decrease mirrors the disappearance of night.
In this sense, the fireflies, or vagalumes, among the many other names this intriguing creature has been given, are to me what constellations are to an astronomer — a reminder that every glow depends on the darkness that holds it.
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