Every year during the first weekend of July, a unique global event flickers to life – World Firefly Day. Held to commemorate the importance of fireflies in our ecosystems, World Firefly Day also aims to highlight the ongoing threats these luminous beetles are facing, including habitat destruction, pollution, and climate change. We speak to Dr Wan Faridah Akmal Jusoh, a Senior Lecturer for Biodiversity & Conservation at the School of Science, from Monash University Malaysia, and the co-Chair of the IUCN Species Survival Commission – Firefly Specialist Group (2022–2025), about the ecology of fireflies, and also why we must safeguard their future, for the well-being of both wildlife and humans.

Image credit: Terry Priest via International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources