Kiesenwetter 1874 (Coleoptera: Lampyridae: Luciolinae)

2 In vivo emission and time-resolved spectra of firefly Luciola praeusta Kiesenwetter 1874 (Coleoptera: Lampyridae: Luciolinae) have been recorded. The emission spectrum shows the FWHM value for this particular species to be 55 nm, which is significantly narrower than the in vivo half widths reported till now. The time-resolved spectrum reveals that a flash, of duration about a hundred milliseconds, is in fact composed of a number of microsecond pulses. This result suggests that the speed of the enzyme-catalysed chemiluminescence reaction in the firefly for the emission of light is much faster than is believed to be