It is a Photos and video of Japanese fireflies (Genji Firefly). Genji fireflies are indigenous to Japan.
They live in a stream of Satoyama. You can appreciate it in Tokyo. Genji fireflies flitting around a riverside in the dusk would be typical fireflies of Japan.
First of all, please watch a beautiful firefly with Photos and video (movie).
And when you visit Japan, please experience the Japanese summer night with a firefly.
Fireflies exist on every continent except Antarctica, with approximately 2000 species worldwide, and about 9 species in the capital of Japan, Tokyo.
Fireflies, with the exception of species that are active during the day, are bioluminescent organisms, which means that they produce their own light.
Most bioluminescent insects glow continuously. Fireflies, however, are the only ones that flash.
The color of light emitted, signal pattern, time and duration of nocturnal activity vary from species to species.
In some of these species, all stages of the lifecycle glow, even the eggs.
Fireflies have made early summer a special time for the Japanese since ancient days.
The Japanese word for firefly, hotaru, is generally used for two species, genji-botaru and heike-botaru.
In their larva form, both species prey on small freshwater snails. Genji-botaru larvae live in clean flowing water, heike-botaru in rice fields and other places where water is stagnant.
There are about 2,000 firefly species in the world, but fewer than 10 species are known to be aquatic at the larva stage.
All of the others are terrestrial at both the larva and adult stages, making the genji and heike species very unusual.
The Japanese archipelago has plenty of rivers, streams, wetlands and irrigated rice fields, and these provide excellent habitats for aquatic fireflies.
So it is natural that, since ancient times, people in villages and towns have observed and enjoyed the little lights darting about in the night.
Fireflies first appear in literature in the Man'yoshu, Japan's oldest collection of poetry (late 8th century). They appear in haiku, longer poems and essays right through to the Edo period (1603-1867).
In the old days, there was a belief that the lights of fireflies represented the souls of the dead.
In the Edo period, one pastime was catching fireflies while enjoying the cool evening air.
Ukiyoe woodblock prints show things used to catch them, such as flat and folding fans, traps made of bamboo grass, and insect nets.
This custom seems to have developed in the mid-1600s in the Seta and Ishiyama districts of Otsu (present-day Shiga Prefecture).
When the light show was at its peak in early summer, hotaru-bune boats would take people on eating and drinking excursions to the best places to see them.
Canon EOS 5D Mark Ⅱ ／ TAMRON SP AF70-200mm F/2.8 Di LD (IF) MACRO ／ 絞り優先AE F18 0.6秒 ISO 50 -1EV（撮影地：静岡県伊東市／城ヶ崎海岸 2013.01.02 9:11）
