Gryllus luciferens. Insect, member of the family Gryllidae, formerly found in grassy regions within the Mesopotamian plateau. Varying from dark to light brown in colour, and similar in appearance to the common field cricket, but with longer wings extending to the end of its thorax. It is the friction from the beating of these wings that accounted for its most remarkable characteristic--the ability to spark the methane vapours emitted from its abdomen and maintain a highly luminescent flame. Hence its common name.
Referenced as early as 3,000 B.C.E. within Sumerian cuneiform texts as 'unam sampge' (i.e., 'seat of radiance'), this insect was commercially cultivated and highly prized for its illumanatory properties by the literate classes until about the 6th century B.C.E. when, amid increasing miltarism and political instability, certain kings decided that this literacy gaff had gone quite far enough already, thank you. No authenticated sightings of the lamplighter bug are known after the 1st century C.E., and it is now believed to be totally extinct.
This species may hold a unique position in the history of human domestication efforts. Not only is it one of the very few insects to have acheived a fully symbiotic relationship with man, but some commentators have hypothesized that it was actually the lamplighter bug that domesticated man, by teaching him literacy, rather than man who domesticated the insect.
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