Creatures of the Night

        Bioluminescent fungi glowing outside my tent and twinkling fireflies filling the night sky are two of my favorite types of nighttime magic.  I’ve also glimpsed bats fluttering through the darkening sky at dusk.  These experiences reveal a fantastical world beyond the bounds of daylight knowing.
        In our oceans, deep sea creatures glow (jellyfish pictured); others use light lures to attract prey.  Friends have experienced a luminescent ocean among the many bays around our planet that shine at night. 
       One of the most incredible science fiction visions of bioluminescence appeared in the original Avatar movie.

        Very different nocturnal creatures inhabit the Rocky Horror Picture Show.  As a young adult, I loved belting out the lyrics to Creature of the Night (“Toucha, Toucha, Touch Me”), hence the title of this blog.

       I recently discovered new night creatures in Night Magic: Adventures among Glowworms, Moon Gardens, and Other Marvels of the Dark by Leigh Ann Henion.  The book was too unfocused for my taste, but had great info~       
       The bioluminescent fungi I’ve witnessed is the fruiting body of mycelium: glowing threads of light hidden beneath the soil. 
       Oregon’s Malheur National Forest is home to the largest known living organism on earth: a humongous honey mushroom that’s 3.7 miles across and 8,500 years old.  Honey mushrooms glow in the dark, as do their mycelium, meaning that this enormous mushroom's underground hyphae produce “subterranean light for miles.” 

      In addition to yellow-blinking fireflies, the author describes Blue Ghosts, a type of firefly “notable for their neon-blue color and enduring flashes—which hold for up to sixty seconds at a time.”  Imagine the night sky filled with these neon-blue beacons.
​       Spiders are also active at night.  “Spiders are, like bats and moths, crucial nocturnal pollinators [and] play a great role in securing human food crops.  Without spider and bat participation in agricultural activities, humanity would lose vast food supplies.”

       Moon gardens can attract these nocturnal pollinators.  “Moon gardens—with plants curated to be enjoyed after sunset—are designed with night bloomers and silver-and-white foliage meant to catch moonlight and ooze perfume.” 
       In North America, moon gardens might include Moonflower (pictured), ​Evening Primrose, Flowering Tobacco,  Angel's Trumpet, Four O'Clocks, and silvery plants like Dusty Miller or Lamb’s Ears.

        Bats are closely associated with the night.  From Night Magic: “The association of bats with Halloween traces back to the fact that, as they prepare for winter, bats are highly active around the holiday.  It also has roots in Celtic Samhain, a festival where people would gather around bonfires for food and merriment.  The firelight they created to warm themselves attracted insects."  And the insects attracted bats on the hunt.

       Glowworms are the larvae of beetles, including some types of fireflies. They can be as long as an inch but most species are smaller.
       The author describes her encounter with glowworms in the wild:  “Around each pinpoint of light, there are webs spun across soil. It makes the glowworms look like they are floating in cotton candy clouds.” 
       Another type of glowworm is the larvae of fungus gnats. These blue glowworms cover the walls of the Waitomo Caves in New Zealand (pictured).

       Humans are also creatures of the night.  The author notes that in the past, darkness “was a place to which humans belonged.  Our ancestors, all of them, knew the night as it existed directly around them, just as they knew how to identify creatures and nuanced sounds that it held.”

       She quotes an anthropologist:  “For ninety-nine percent of human evolution, in darkness, by dim firelight, is how our ancestors lived.”  Another anthropologist notes that dark caves are sacred in religions across the world, and says,  ”Darkness has been an active agent in the development of human spirituality.”
       Our eyes adjust to low light within 15-30 minutes, but “it can take several hours without flashlights or phone screens for eyes to reach full sensitivity, which, at its peak, grants humans night vision that can be one million times more powerful than what we utilize in daylight.”  A protein called Rhodopsin maximizes light absorption in our eyes—but any light exposure will “bleach” the Rhodopsin, restarting the adjustment.

       All magical night creatures—including humans—are at risk due to light pollution.  The author says,  “In US cities alone, 365 to 988 million birds are killed every year during [their] nocturnal migrations in part due to artificial lighting issues, which disorient and cause them to collide with buildings, often fatally.  And without access to navigational stars in cities awash with LEDs, some birds simply lose their way.”

       And though we may cling to artificial light for a sense of security,  “studies have found that streetlights do not lessen accidents or crime.  Certain forms of security lighting have even been found to decrease safety since they make potential victims and property that might be stolen or vandalized easier for perpetrators to visually target.”
       She also suggests our attraction to digital devices may be the legacy of evolving around campfires:  “when we throw ourselves against computers and tablets and phones as we scroll social media sites, we are likely attempting to reach the hearth fires that we, as humans, have always depended on.  We’re seeking sensory-rich exchanges and comradery and caring reconciliation.”

Whatever your personal relationship to darkness and creatures of the night, I invite you to fill your imagination with a world overflowing with moon gardens and bioluminescence—our world, as beautiful by night as it is by day.

For more on deep-sea creatures of the dark, read my review of Underworld.

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