Day 105: Glowworms!

Today I went on a glowworm hike with John, Alex and Holly.  We drove about 20 minutes east, to a town called Clevedon, and hiked back into the hills in search of glowworms.  We found a few, but not heaps.  It had been raining so that could have been part of why we didn't see too many.

Glowworms (Arachnocampa luminosa) are a member of the spider family.  They are worms that stick their heads into soil and eat stuff, but they have no way of excreting their waste.  They glow because that is a reaction happening to get rid of the by-products of their food.  In reality it is their bums that are doing the glowing!  Glowworms are found in caves sometimes, but we found them in little gullies in the earth, like the steep sides of a trench formed by a stream.  In the photo above, you can see that John and Alex and Holly are amazed by the glow worms.  Since it was night, though, they don't really photograph very well, but below you can just see one in the middle of the photo:

And here are me and Holly, pointing to some glowworms and looking really impressed.

Even though we didn't find too many glowworms, we had fun hiking around in the woods in the dark and playing hiking games like the rhyming game.  It was really fun to spend time with John and Holly and Alex out in the woods.