One of the things I did before I left New Zealand was a tour of the Glow Worm caves and the limestone caves. Since I got the Mighty Go Camper I was able to tour three caves for free but due to limited time I was only able to do two of the three tours. One of them was glow worm caves which sadly was off limits to taking pictures. If your ever in New Zealand and on the North Island I recommend doing the Waitomo Glowworm Cave tour. It was a lot of fun, the glowworms were nice and bright and it is the oldest cave for glowworms on the islands. Not only that but if you do rent from the Might Go Campers then it is a free tour and who can argue with free. 

So basically a glow worm is a winged insect. The glow worms have four stages that take about 11 months. The eggs are laid on the walls in clutches of 30 to 40 eggs at a time. Once the egg hatches the larvae emit a light, build their nest and put down lines and feed from them. The lines they put down are sticky (like a spiders web) and those who are attracted to the light that they emit are caught in the sticky thread and from there the thread is then pulled up and the food is devoured. The larvae stage lasts for about nine months. Once that is over it turns into a pupa inside a cocoon and then comes out as a two winged insect. 

Now the interesting thing about this insect is that once it hatches the adult stage only has a few days to live. They have no mouths to eat. No Digestive tract to process food. So, what are they alive for? To have a bunch of sex, lay eggs and then die. Now in this process of being alive there is a very good chance that the insects could get caught in another larve's sticky line and get eaten but if that is not the case then they basically find a partner of the opposite sex and go at it like rabbits. The male dies first and then the female dies after she lays her eggs where the whole process starts over again.