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Carnivorous Glowing Worms Pretend They're Stars to Attract Prey [Video]

If you're a moth, better check twice to be sure that's really the sky you're looking at

This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American



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If you're inside New Zealand Waitomo Caves and look up, you might think you are seeing twinkling blue stars. But in this new Deep Look film by KQED  you will discover that the ceiling is really covered with glowing worms—and these carnivores are hungry. Moths and other insects are attracted to the lights and get caught in the worms' sticky hanging webs. The glow worms reel in the captured insects and eat them alive.  

 

Eliene Augenbraun is a multimedia science producer, formerly Nature Research's Multimedia Managing Editor and Scientific American's senior video producer. Before that, she founded and ran ScienCentral, an award-winning news service providing ABC and NBC with science news stories. She has a PhD in Biology.

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