The larvae – a gardener’s friend, being voracious predators of snails – take two years to mature, which leaves them susceptible to being destroyed by increasingly intense meadow management, with regular cuts for silage and hay.Ī 2021 scientific study found that the abundance of glowworms declined markedly with increased proximity to artificial lighting. Although the males fly, the species is notoriously bad at dispersing, and so becomes trapped in small areas of suitable habitat. Glowworms are not worms but beetles and only the flightless female glows, to attract a male on summer nights. With overgrazing and hedge-flaying and tidying up the countryside we’ve turned their lights out.”Ī female glowworm. They were everywhere, twinkling their way through eternity. “Within a lifetime, people can remember a parent bringing one into their bedroom in a jam jar and lying in bed watching them glow. “These wee things were objects of delight,” said Gow. The four-year project is led by the ecologist Derek Gow, who owns Combeshead and has been responsible for successful schemes to return water voles and beavers to the British countryside.
Hundreds more larvae, and some glowing adults, will be released at the hotel again this summer, and at Combeshead in Cornwall, a rewilded farm and glamping site. More than 500 glowworm larvae have already been set free in the grounds of Elvetham hotel in Hampshire, where wildflower meadows and nature-friendly scrubland is being restored. Now, hundreds of glowworms ( Lampyris noctiluca) are being bred in captivity for release in two locations this summer, in an attempt to revive the declining species.
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