I took a group of guests down to see the glowworms last night and got an unexpected (yet pleasant) surprise while on the walk back.  I was shining my torch out into the bush trying to catch a glimpse of a possum or rat or the like and spotted a northern brown bandicoot instead!  Quite cute, she was.  Go ahead.  Click the link.  You know you want to…

Anyway, yeah, aside from that, the glowies were fantastic.  Glowworms are certainly one of our most popular attractions.  It is estimated that glowworm tourism brings in about $6 million per year throughout the world.  They’re the larvae of a kind of fly called a fungus gnat, and they spend the vast majority of their lives in a larval stage trying to get enough food to make the quantum leap through pupae-hood to adult-hood.  In fact, an egg will take about 6 days to hatch, and the ensuing larva (of the species arachnocampa flava, which we have here) will not mature into an adult for as long as 12 months.  During the time that they are in this larval stage, they produce bioluminescence by combining their own bodily waste (luciferin), the enzyme that acts upon the waste (luciferase), an energy molecule (adenosine triphosphate), and oxygen (the stuff you breathe, dummy) inside their abdomens.  The whole point of glowing is to attract prey into a series of mucous-covered threads (called snares) that trap the prey.  The larva then pulls the thread back up to itself and feasts.  Yum.

When they finally mature into adults, they lose the ability to glow and spend all their efforts on reproducing.  In fact, adult females only live for 2-3 days, and adult males can live up to 7 days.  This short lifespan is due, no doubt, to the fact that they don’t even have mouths in their adult stage.  So, essentially, life for the adult fungus gnat is typified by no eating and lots of coitus.  Hmmm….

But they’re still lovely.

 Anyway, I’ve just been flying the desk at the Discovery Center for the last few days.  One of my colleagues is getting ready to take off on maternity leave, so her replacement arrived today to begin training with us.  Hopefully that will get me outside a little more often so that I don’t go crazy from being away from my good friend the Sun…

Otherwise, everything is beautiful here, as always, and I’ve got two days off this week (my Wendnesday and Thursday, America’s Tuesday and Wednesday).  Keep your phones on because who knows who might ring you… Bua-ha-ha-ha!!!!!!

Cheers everyone!  Love you, Mum!