100,000 released fireflies will die out in three to seven days, experts say

Around 100,000 lighten bugs are released in Chengdu, the capital city of southwestern China's Sichuan province on June 25.

The fact that up to 100,000 lighten bugs were released in Chengdu, the capital city of southwestern China's Sichuan province on June 25 has attracted the attention of many local residents this summertime. However, it also brought on opposition from an expert because he believes all the released fireflies will die in three days to seven days.

On the evening of June 25, a total of 100,000 lighten bugs were let free to fly way from a transparent glass box at a park in Chengdu. The green light lit up part of the sky, some of them flying away and some falling to the ground. Some kids picked up the fallen bugs carefully, and some people caught the flying bugs in the air and put them into cups.

Zhang Li, director of Insect Museum of West China, clearly expressed his opposition to the event and said all 100,000 fireflies will die off within three to seven days. Fireflies have relatively strict requirements for their living environment, and once they leave their original birthplace, they will have a hard time to survive. Even good surroundings generally need to be transformed in order to be a suitable habitat for fireflies. Without any action, all of the bugs will die, Zhao said.

Organizers of such kinds of events have said all the fireflies have been bred in captivity. But because of the cost and difficulty of captive breeding it was not possible to conduct artificial breeding for all of them so many active ones were captured from different places, added Zhao.