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2024-25 IA1 NY ELA - 3rd Grade

Name: ___________________________

Only in New Zealand

by Donna O'Meara, Faces

Imagine for a moment that you are a Maori chief in New Zealand more than 100 years ago.
Your name is Chief Tane Tinorau. You and your friend, Fred Mace, who is visiting from England,
have decided to explore an underground limestone cave system called Waitomo.

A river flows through the caves. You are paddling a narrow boat downstream, and before you is
the huge black mouth of the cave. Once you enter, all is dark. The only sound is trickling water. As
your eyes adjust to the darkness, you see a million lights reflected in the water. You look up to the
ceiling and it looks like all of the stars of the Milky Way are twinkling. You have just discovered
one of New Zealand's most unique insects—the glowworm.

The glowworm is the larval or maggot[1] stage of a flying insect and is no bigger than
a common housefly. Yet, for the past 100 years, millions of people from all over the world have
traveled to the Glowworm Caves at Waitomo in New Zealand to see them.

The New Zealand glowworm lives nowhere else on the planet. Its scientific name is
Arachnocampa luminosa. The insect's entire life cycle consists of 11 months. First, the flying insect
lays clutches[2] of about 35 eggs inside the dark, warm, moist cave ceilings. As the larva, or worm,
hatches, it glows to attract food. It attaches itself to the cave ceiling and acts like a fisherman. The
glowworm sends down a thread-thin sticky "line." Other flying insects such as moths are blown
into the cave by wind. They are attracted to the glowworm's greenish-white light. They become

snagged in the glowworm's sticky lines. The glowworm reels them in and eats them. The worms
remain in the glow-in-the-dark stage for nine months, during which they grow to be an inch long.
Next, their light dims and they grow and develop for two weeks. The adult insect emerges, and the
cycle repeats.

You may be wondering how the glowworm glows. The phenomenon[3] is called
bioluminescence[4]. Bioluminescence occurs when several natural products act on each other to
produce an electrical glow.

The cave at Waitomo where millions of glittering lights greeted Chief Tinorau and Mace is now
called Glowworm Grotto. If you visit Waitomo, you will experience the glowworms just as they did
—in silence from a boat that is pushed with a pole. And, like them, you will look up to see a million
twinkling "stars" overhead in the dark.

Multiple Choice

Read this sentence from paragraph 2 of the passage. "As your eyes adjust to the darkness, you see a million lights reflected in the water." According to the text, the word "adjust" means to

• attach to the cave ceiling.

• glow in the dim light of the cave

• reflect the bright colors

• change to fit in new conditions

Multiple Choice

How long is the glowworm's life cycle from larva to adult?

• 11 months

• 2 weeks

• 9 months

• 100 years

Multiple Choice

Based on the text, at which stage in the picture does the glowworm's light dim?

• eggs

• glowworm

• pupa

• adult fly

Multiple Choice

What is the main point the writer makes about New Zealand glowworms?

• They are a lot like most other worms.

• They catch food with a sticky thread.

• They are an interesting and unusual insect.

• They look like stars twinkling in the sky.