They once lit up summer nights, people read by their luminescence and they have been celebrated by everyone from William Shakespeare to Crowfoot, a 19th-century North American chief.
The glowworms have had their lights dimmed by a cult of tidiness in the countryside.
In an attempt to revive the declining species, hundreds of glowworms are being bred in captivity for release in two locations this summer.
In the grounds of Elvetham hotel in Hampshire, more than 500 glowworm larvae have already been set free. There will be hundreds of more larvae and glowing adults released at the hotel and at the rewilded farm and glamping site at Combeshead in Cornwall this summer.
The four-year project is led by an ecologist who has been responsible for successful schemes to return water voles and beavers to the British countryside.
People can remember a parent bringing one into their bedroom and lying in bed watching them glow. They were everywhere, twinkling their way through time. We have turned their lights out because of overgrazing and hedge-flaying.
The female glows to attract a male on summer nights. Although the males fly, the species is notoriously bad at dispersal and becomes trapped in small areas of suitable habitat.
The gardener's friend, being a voracious predator of snails, takes two years to mature, which leaves them vulnerable to being destroyed by meadow management.
Increased proximity to artificial lighting caused the abundance of glowworms to decline. Night lights can cause females to dim their lights and bamboozle males. The female will not move away from the light pollution.
The Elvetham hotel could have inspired William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, according to the co-owner of the hotel.
This is a fairytale castle in southern England, and we wanted to make the garden like a fairytale, so I thought about bringing back England's only native glowing insect.
He was told by insect breeders that it was impossible to breed glowworms at scale in captivity.
Pete Cooper, who works for Gow, was already breeding glowworms with a method he mastered during the Pandemic, thanks to the help of a glowworm keeper in Germany.
Every day during their growing season, fresh snails are fed on a bed of coconut fibre in a plastic tub with a damp sponge and kept on a bed of plastic.
When travelling for work, Cooper takes glowworms with him in a cool-bag so he can keep an eye on them.
The gardener at Elvetham has been collecting snails and leaving them in the release-zone for the 569 larvae that will be released last summer. Next summer, they will reach maturity and glow. The hotel has a timed lighting system to keep the glowing females at bay.
churchyards, playing fields and local meadow should become wildlife-rich places again if glowworms are used to restore local nature. Other species will benefit from reviving glowworms.
These insects are driving habitat restoration which benefits a lot of other species. Reducing artificial lighting will help bats as well as slowworms.
Cooper believes that the iron age pigs are attractive to females because their lights can be seen by males if they glow.
Both Gow and Cooper hope that glowworm reintroduction can become more widespread, with community keepers and groups forming a citizen-led restoration of the species.
There is a symbolism in the glowworm lights going out at a time when things are not looking good.
Children can turn captive breeding and release into the countryside if we get good at it. Why couldn't this be something you do as a child that has meaning? They will look at the tiny things they have allowed to twinkle again. If people are to care for the things that we share the planet, they need to have formative experiences.
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What is life? Crowfoot, a 19th-century chief of the Siksika First Nation, is remembered for the flash of a firefly in the night.
We are all worms. I believe that I am a glow-worm, according to a note from a friend.
The glow-worm shows the matin to be near, and gins to pale his uneffectual fire.
To have my love to bed, and to arise, and to crop their waxen thighs, and light them at the fiery glow-worms.
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