United States or Iraq ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Science employs the same term: it calls the lantern-bearer, Lampyris noctiluca, LIN. In this case, the common name is inferior to the scientific phrase, which, when translated, becomes both expressive and accurate. In fact, we might easily cavil at the word "worm." The Lampyris is not a worm at all, not even in general appearance.
Probably the Noctiluca is not rivalled in this respect even by miscroscopic unicellular algæ which compose the "red snow." By filtering sea-water containing Noctilucæ its light can be concentrated, and it has been found that a few teaspoonfuls will then yield light enough to enable one to read holding a book at the ordinary distance from the eyes about ten inches.
As to the "homologous insects" of the Upper Miocene period in Switzerland, we find among them, mingled with genera now wholly foreign to Europe, some very familiar forms, such as the common glowworm, Lampyris noctiluca, Linn., the dung-beetle, Geotrupes stercorarius, Linn., the ladybird, Coccinella septempunctata, Linn., the ear-wig, Forficula auricularia, Linn., some of our common dragon-flies, as Libellula depressa, Linn., the honey-bee, Apis mellifera, Linn., the cuckoo spittle insect, Aphrophora spumaria, Linn., and a long catalogue of others, to all of which Professor Heer had given new names, but which some entomologists may regard as mere varieties until some stronger reasons are adduced for coming to a contrary opinion.
In essence, it was a cluster of countless open-sea infusoria, of noctiluca an eighth of an inch wide, actual globules of transparent jelly equipped with a threadlike tentacle, up to 25,000 of which have been counted in thirty cubic centimeters of water.
This property does not belong exclusively to the Medusa noctiluca, which Forskael has described in his Fauna Aegyptiaca, and which Gmelin has applied to the Medusa pelagica of Loefling, notwithstanding its red tentacula, and the brownish tuberosities of its body.
It is spontaneous, for example, in the Pelagia phosphorea, but not in the allied Pelagia noctiluca, a very common form in the Mediterranean. In both of the jelly-fishes just mentioned the phosphorescence, when displayed at all, is on the surface of the swimming disk, and this is most commonly the case with the whole group. Sometimes, however, the phosphorescence is specially localized.
This Noctiluca is a spherical form of not more than one-fiftieth of an inch in size, with a slight depression or indentation at one point, marking the position of a mouth leading to a short digestive cavity, and having close beside it a filament, by means of which it probably moves about. The sphere is filled with protoplasm, in which there is a nucleus and one or more gaps, or "vacuoles."
Science employs the same term: it calls it the lantern-bearer, Lampyris noctiluca, Lin. In this case the common name is inferior to the scientific phrase, which, when translated, becomes both expressive and accurate. In fact, we might easily cavil at the word "worm." The Lampyris is not a worm at all, not even in general appearance.
They are non-parasitic, but some of them by their presence in the body may cause such diseases as dysentery, etc. Then in the salt water near the surface there are often myriads of minute Noctiluca whose wonderfully phosphorescent little bodies glow like coals of fire when the water is disturbed at night.
Word Of The Day