Bioluminescence emissions of the fi refl y Luciola praeusta Kiesenwetter 1874 (Coleoptera : Lampyridae : Luciolinae).

We recorded the in vivo emission and time-resolved spectra of the fi refl y Luciola praeusta Kiesenwetter 1874 (Coleoptera : Lampyridae : Luciolinae). The emission spectrum shows that the full width at half maximum (FWHM) value for this particular species is 55 nm, which is signifi cantly narrower than the in vivo half-widths reported till now. The time-resolved spectrum reveals that a fl ash of about 100 ms duration is, in fact, composed of a number of microsecond pulses. This suggests that the speed of the enzyme-catalysed chemiluminescence reaction in the fi refl y for the emission of light is much faster than was previously believed.