Fifth Grade
Worksheets
Sea Fireflies
Fireflies are strange little insects. On warm summer nights, they fly around looking for mates. To "advertise" themselves, they send out light signals. At times, they even synchronize their flashes. The blinks brighten up the dark sky, making a lovely sight!
For sure, advertising for love is what makes fireflies famous. But it is not something only they can do. Under the sea, there is another kind of firefly that can perform the same trick. We call them sea fireflies. The Japanese call them umi-hotaru (umi means sea; hotaru means firefly).
Sea fireflies are tiny animals. They are totally unrelated to the fireflies on land in spite of their name. As a matter of fact, sea fireflies are not even insects, whereas fireflies are. Sea fireflies are crustaceans. Crustaceans are invertebrates. That means they do not have backbones. They have jointed legs and hard outer shells (exoskeletons) to protect their soft bodies. Most crustaceans live in water. Common examples include lobsters, shrimp, crabs, and clams. Clams, in many ways, resemble sea fireflies. Both of them have bivalve shells. Both of them are more or less oval shaped.
