PowerPoint Presentation

10/6/03

Synchronous Flashing

•In SE Asia enormous numbers of fireflies gather in trees and flash in synchrony

•A group of trees spread over 1/10 mile may flash in synchrony

•Only males do synchronous flashing

•Had been unexplained for 300 years

•Early 1900s: claimed to be an illusion because no explanation could be imagined


	In large areas from India east to Philippines & New Guinea
	Rate about 3 / 2 sec (or a little less than once per sec.)
	In the early 1900s, some claimed it was an illusion, because they could not imagine an explanation
	(SOBS, 143-5)