Fireflies

Fireflies are insects in the family Lampyridae in the beetle order Coleoptera. They are winged beetles, and commonly called fireflies or lightning bugs for their conspicuous crepuscular use of bioluminescence to attract mates or prey.

Comparable to : The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter—'tis the difference between the lightning-bug and the lightning.

Mark Twain, in a letter of 15 October 1888, as quoted The Art of Authorship: Literary Reminiscences, Methods of Work, and Advice to Young Beginners (1890) by George Bainton

To a child's eye a lightning-bug outshines the brightest fixed star. There is no little childishness in every generation of grown-up people. The Lightning-bug never sees a second summer, the star shines on forever.

The lightning bug is brilliant
But he hasn't any mind
He blunders through existence
With his headlight on behind.

Anonymous, widely circulated in American periodicals from the 1890s and early 1900s. The earliest known citation, in Fiber and Fabric, Vol 27, no. 683 (2 April 1898), p. 84,[1] refers to an unidentified issue of Charles Austin Bates' Criticisms, which ran from 1897 to 1902.