The Kawiti Glowworm Caves

Preface by Mom: We went to the Kawiti Glowworm Caves the other day, and this is the resulting writing assignment. Homeschooling on a boat, one of the things the boys miss out on is group projects, so I’m going to start having them do some projects together.  This was our first experiment with this concept.

Glow Worms

Glow worms aren’t exactly worms. They are the larvae of a fungus gnat. The glow worm likes to live on the ceiling of a cave so if you go spelunking, watch out! They might fall on your head.

Glow worms are small worms (2.5 cm) that have the ability to make their tails glow. They glow for a reason, but we’ll get to that later.  Glow worms eat insects that fly around in the cave while it rains outside.  That’s right Glow worms live in caves, how else could you see their glow.

The glow worm starts out as an egg laid by a fungus gnat.  Then the egg hatches into a larvae after about two to three weeks. The larvae catches food in a web that it makes and lives like that for three to six months (depending on how much food it gets). After the elapsed time spent as a larvae ,the glow worm spins itself a cocoon, and staying like that for about two weeks before transforming into a fungus gnat. The gnat doesn’t have a mouth, so it has to find a mate and lay the eggs in about three days before it dies.

Now back to the glow of the worms. The reason for this glow is… wait, wait, wait.   Let’s start with the web they spin below them. It can get from 2cm to half a meter. The reason for this web is to catch insects in them.  What are the chances of a bug flying through it?  Very low, but that’s when the glow comes into play. The glow attracts the insects toward the web, and when the insect gets stuck in the web the glow worm sucks it up and eats the insect. Now that its eaten it dims its glow to save energy.

If you ever find a glow worm, do not touch it.  If you do, the sticky webs will probably stick to you and their light will dim. Same happens if you shine a bright light directly at them. Also their lights take a long time to brighten back up, which takes about four to five hours. So when you come across glow worms, please be careful for other people might enjoy them.

By Alex (age 13) and Brenden (age 12)