Insectarium

Fireflies' Love Language Is Their Butts

On warm nights, city lots and rolling rural meadows come alive with the blinking code of fireflies. But it’s not just how they’re flashing that’s interesting—it’s why. Each species of firefly has its own light language to find a mate. Host Jessica Ware helps us decode firefly flirting and meets a high school researcher on a quest to understand how we can keep our summers twinkling with fireflies.

Fireflies' Love Language Is Their Butts

9m 59s

  • How Ants Make Our Cities Healthier: asset-mezzanine-16x9

    How Ants Make Our Cities Healthier

    S1 E7 - 11m 4s

    There are incredible miniature civilizations booming within our concrete jungles: ants! We don’t often think of urban areas as having “ecologies” but Amy Savage, Ph.D. studies the amazing diversity of ants making it work and how their newfound love of our cast-off carbs is making our cities greener.

  • Why Bumble Bees Are the Fuzzy Heroes We Need: asset-mezzanine-16x9

    Why Bumble Bees Are the Fuzzy Heroes We Need

    S1 E6 - 11m 4s

    If the insect world has a fuzzy, charismatic cutie, it’s surely the humble bumble bee. While insect populations are declining around the globe, bumble bees face unique threats that make them particularly vulnerable. Surveying projects across the U.S. are combining the forces of researchers and community scientists to help protect these critical native pollinators.

  • Butterfly Effect: Can Monarchs Avoid Extinction?: asset-mezzanine-16x9

    Butterfly Effect: Can Monarchs Avoid Extinction?

    S1 E5 - 11m 20s

    Why are monarch butterflies disappearing? You may know them for their amazing migration, but over the past few decades, monarch butterflies have been part of a vanishing act that has scientists worried. Conservation biologists Ashley Fisher and Isis Howard show us what it takes to track monarch butterflies at an overwintering spot as they try to figure out what’s behind the population plunge.

WETA Passport

Stream tens of thousands of hours of your PBS and local favorites with WETA Passport whenever and wherever you want. Catch up on a single episode or binge-watch full seasons before they air on TV.