Animal Luminescence 553 



The next observation ^^ was by J. Reinhardt (1854) , who gave a 

 careful description in Danish of a specimen from Lagoa Santa found 

 in April, 1853. In 1868 A. Murray named the animal Astraptor 

 illuminator, deriving the generic name from the Greek astrapton, 

 meaning a flash of lightning. Murray thought the light was due to 

 chemical action, i. e., a combustion throughout the body which was 

 visible through the spiracles. Actually the light does not come from 

 the spiracles but from small organs posterior to them. 



H. Burmeister (1872) observed a similar insect, caught in 1858 

 in rotten wood near Parana, the former capital of the Argentine 

 Republic. It was 2 inches long and \ inch ^vide and ejected 



from the anus a clear reddish brown fluid which had a corrosive effect 

 upon the skin. During all this time it was emitting light. . . . This light, 

 which the animal can intensify or diminish at will is of two diflEerent 

 colors. At the head end it emitted an entirely red light like a burning 

 coal; but on the body the light was greenish white, like that of the glow- 

 worm, or of phosphorus. 



Several additional records and descriptions of " Astraptor " by 

 F. Smith (1869), R. Trimen (1870), H. Weyenbergh (1876), H. 

 von Jhering (1887) are to be found in the nineteenth-century litera- 

 ture. Most of the early observers thought that the insect was the 

 larva of the elaterid, Pyrophorus, but in 1886 E. Haase described 

 " Ein neuer Phengodes," and in 1888 published a long paper giving 

 the history of previous observations and a detailed description of a 

 pair of the insects caught in copula by Dr. Hieronymus at Cordoba 

 on October 10, 1881. This lucky find established the true identity 

 of the larva as a Phengodes-like insect, named P. hieronymi by 

 Haase (1886) . His drawing is reproduced as figine 43. In all species 

 of this genus the adult females, pupae, and larvae are hardly dis- 

 tinguished from each other while the males are normal winded 

 beetles. Dr. Hieronymus kept the living fertilized female, which 

 laid eggs that later hatched to larvae during the last part of De- 

 cember. The eggs were not luminous, but the larvae (11 mm. long) 

 had red and gieenish lights like the mother. The adult male showed 

 a greenish light from the underside of the abdomen. 



^^J. Goudot described in 1843 luminous Phengodes pulchella and P. Roulini from 

 the plateaus and hot valleys of the high mountains of Colombia (Xouvelles-Grenade) , 

 with a constant light of long duration but no mention of a red light {Rev. Zoolo^ique 

 12-22. 1843) . " 



