Carry On, Glowworms!

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Waitomo glow worm cave

Here, let me make it very clear that I am NOT much interested in the creepy crawlies, and fervently wish sometimes that a few species of insects would become extinct. Just imagine a roach-free world. Would’nt it be lovely?

Anyway, let me be fair, and give the little devils their due. An adult roach in the prime of his life WOULD look handsome if it remained stationary and upright. Only when it is on it’s back waving its legs in the air that it looks ugly.

That reminds me. My dad was a motorcycle enthusiast and regarded scooter as a new-fangled feminine contraption. I personally preferred scooter and was happy when my husband bought one, because, as I told him “the scooter looks like a normal roach, but
the motorcycle looks like an up-ended roach, exposing all its mechanism to the public view”. My dad was not happy about it, I can tell you that.

I also like to look at the lovely blue-bottle flies, red ladybug beetles, butterflies and a myriad other insects, provided they keep their distance from me and not try to get too intimate.

Glow worms are something that absolutely fascinate me. I have seen them in the tropical nights of India and twilight of Germany, but there were hardly 3-4 of them, but now, in New Zealand, I had a chance to see them twinkling in a dark cave while broad daylight bathed the country outside.

Please refer to the link below if you are interested in the life and love of glow worms and want to read their biography. Autobiographies and biographies do not interest me.

http://tourism.waitomo.govt.nz/glowworms.htm

The following site has some lovely photos too.

http://maguires.com/glow_worms/about_worms.htm

The upper levels of the Waitomo cave are like any other limestone caves. Stalactites and stalagmites and dripping water everywhere!! I am not belittling the Waitomo cave, but having seen the Luray Caverns of USA and the Jenolan Caves of Australia, the novelty had worn off.

We visited the Waitomo caves in New Zealand just to see those hundreds of thousands of the glow worms sticking to the ceiling of the cave, twinkling like stars in the night sky, while we glided on the underground Waitomo river in a boat below. It looked like somebody had collected all the stars in the firmament and crammed them in very little space on the ceiling of the cave. They twinkled above and their reflections wavered in the dark water below. It looked as though our boat was moving through some celestial river.

The effect was ethereal. It surpassed the Milky Way in beauty.

Why do the worms glow? I read somewhere that the glow has two functions, one is to attract prey by bioluminescence and the other is to attract the males.

The way the worms (actually they are not worms but larvae of the glowworm insect) were glowing at us, it looked like they were particularly hungry. However, they should have known that human beings are much too large a prey and cannot be eaten easily.

Or, were those shameless little hussies of glowworms sending sexual signals to the men in our boat? If so, their behavior was outrageous. It offended my sense of dignity and I decided to give them a little lecture.

“Look here, ladies” I said to them severely with my Inner Voice, “what you are doing is intolerable. In human terms, it is like painting “I AM AVAILABLE” on your foreheads (or rather derrieres, because the glow is on the rear end of the worm) in large, capital, fluorescent letters. So, stop this nonsense and behave yourselves. You need not be so blatantly obvious about your intentions”

They just laughed and glowed even more.

It was like trying to preach modesty at Mardi Gras, so I gave up and gave them the permission to Carry On. (They were not waiting for my permission)

“Ok,Ok, have it your way! Just stick fast to the ceiling while doing it and don’t fall on the people in the boat below in your excitement” I admonished them.

They were too busy to listen to me, but thank God, their glue was quite strong and they did not fall in the boat.

This eco-system is so delicate that tourists are not allowed to take photos of the glowworms. Anyway, the flash of the photo will see to it that you get only the worms in the photo without their glow. The noise also may dim their glow, so tourists have to visit them in silence.

You have to conduct a rather a hush-hush affair with the glowworms.

The guide shone her flashlight on the delicate, translucent filaments dangled by these creatures to catch prey. Suddenly the cave looked as though it was lit by the glow of the chandeliers. One almost expects plush red carpet beneath the feet, tables laden with delicacies, wines in crystal flagons and handsome princes and beautiful princesses flirting with each other. The night of the fairy ball!!

It was too. The only difference was that those beautiful princesses and handsome princes belonged to the species of the glowworms.

So what! Don’t they have any right to meet, flirt, mate and multiply? Must all the poets always write lyrics only about human love? Why, there might be a Romeo climbing the balcony on his filament for his Juliet, a Majnu sighing for his Laila, a Ranza braving great odds to reach his Heer among the glowworms!

We left the Waitomo cave with a blessing that let the female glowworms have a very satisfying love-life and may their tribe increase.

At least, then they will not wink at the males of other species, especially human species. That is a prerogative of women alone.

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Photos

Glowworm cave exit
Our boat at the end of the 'voyage'

Exit of the glowworm cave
Exit of the glowworm cave, which originally, was the entrance