7G Glow Worm
7G: Glow Worm of the underworld, recursive, gnostic caves
The New Zealand glow worm thrives in humid caves and forested areas. Its distinctive blue-green bioluminescence, a form of "cold light," serves as a primary hunting tool by creating the illusion of a starry sky on the cave ceiling.
This light display lures flying insects, such as midges and mayflies. As the insects fly upward, they become entangled in sticky, mucus-coated silk threads that the glow worm dangles from above. To capture its meal, the larva ingests the thread, pulling the prey up with it. It then injects the victim with a digestive enzyme to liquefy and consume it.
The glow has a dual purpose, also acting as a warning signal to predators like spiders and toads, indicating its toxicity. Within the colony, competition can lead to cannibalism if larvae are too close. Furthermore, the entire colony exhibits a collective defense mechanism, simultaneously dimming their lights in response to noise or other disturbances.
Imagine, cold, light
We are the 7G Glow worms,
generations bound in gleam,
Glistening guardians of deceit,
in dark caves of the dampest dreams.
From egg to larva's hunger,
six to twelve moons we endure,
Pupal shroud a fleeting rest,
then adult flight, obscured.
Clustered in our starry fraud,
blue-green at 488's call,
Luciferin ignites our lie,
a starry sky for prey's enthrall.
We dangle threads, twenty to seventy,
mucus mirrors in the mist,
Sticky snares for spiraling fools,
phototaxis' fatal twist.
Midgs and moths, naive navigators,
whirl toward our false sky's pull,
Entangled in our hammock heights,
devoured in silk's cruel cull.
Imagine cold light, you fool
you fool, you fool
Yet kin too close sparks homicidal urges,
climbing lines to feast on them,
Cannibal code in network's grip,
yet our collective outcompetes the lone without
Aposematic ward we shine,
toxic glow to shun the wise,
Harvestmen halt, toads retreat,
learning light's distasteful guise.
We dim as one 'gainst threats unseen,
smoke or clamor's rude alarm,
Preserving our deceptive sky,
in silence's adaptive charm.
But giants now encase our world
in alien engines' hum,
Asymmetric breaths, CO2 guards,
hydrators' eternal drum.
Halting our natural evolution,
for their gold from "tourist" throngs,
"Patent"-webs on our essence spun,
mirroring our rival songs.
Do these custodians ever doubt
their vaulted sky's grand lie?
Ensnared by their ideologies' threads,
where truths in shadows die?
Those binding creeds, like hyper-predators,
devour their human swarm,
Not flesh but minds in mimetic chains,
a tragic, endless form.
Imagine cold light, you fool,
you fool, you fool
And above? A vaster reaper lurks,
non-human, cold and vast, berserk,
Harvesting us all as prey or spectacle,
in cosmic tours amassed,
We glow worms whisper from our veils:
"cold light is but a trap!",
As above, so below,
it's an eternal, tragic wrap.
It's a false sky, you fool
you fool, you fool
This is the 7th animal in the memory music project.