Moreover, enjoy this education-based experience in some parts of Australia with a guided tour. This unique phenomenon is a marvellous experience for people of all ages. Glow-worms start their lives as eggs, where they spend 10–20 days before hatching to become larvae, which is how they spend most of their life.Discover the lit-up world of glow worm caves in Australia. They can also cut oversized or unwanted prey from their lines. However, if the prey is too far down the line to be considered safe, glow-worms will pull up the line to eat the prey.

Glow-worms then emerge from their tube and reach down to eat their prey. Mistaking the glow-worms’ light for the open sky, the prey flies upwards and gets caught in the glow-worms’ lines. Glow-worms use their naturally created light to attract their prey. It takes glow-worms 1–15 minutes to create each line, depending on the length. Bush-dwelling glow-worms have much shorter lines, making them less likely to become tangled in windy conditions. Glow-worms living in caves may have lines up to 500 mm long. These ‘fishing lines’ vary in length and number depending on the glow-worm’s habitat. Glow-worms use their mouths to create silk threads and send down droplets of thick mucus to make the lines sticky, enabling them to catch small insects. Glow-worms use their mucous glands to create small, flexible tubes – similar to hammocks. They hang from cave roofs and along stream banks and gully walls. Glow-worms live in still, dark, damp cave systems and forests where there is appropriate prey. In their larval state, glow-worms grow from 3–5 mm long when they hatch to a length of 30 mm before they pupate. They are the larval stage of the fungus gnat, which looks similar to the common mosquito. Their Māori name is titiwai, meaning ‘lights reflected in water’, and their scientific name, Arachnocampa luminosa, translates to ‘bright spider-worm’. Names usually provide information that describes the living thing. Living things often have a common name, scientific name and, in New Zealand, a Māori name. Small but bright, it is no wonder why they attract so many tourists to places such as Waitomo and Paparoa National Park. Glow-worms are New Zealand’s underground stars.

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