I saw one of these today. I had just pulled my kayak up onto the beach at Annawamscutt and it jumped up and landed on a little green tangle of seaweed a couple of feet away. I thought it was a grasshopper. But when I got closer, there was no mistaking it. Those dots. “I am supposed to squish you,” I said to it. So I did. I took a random clamshell and crushed it into the sand. Feeling rather triumphant, I splashed along the waterline in my bare feet for a while and then saw another one. This one was in the water. Actually it was on top of the water, perhaps borne up by the surface tension against its spread wings, and looked like it was swimming, trying to get to the rocks next to the dock, the red patch on its exposed underwings like a tiny life vest. “No way,” I said, and drowned it with my foot. On the way back through the cove, I saw more lantern flies on the water, all swimming with intent toward some object – a boat hull, a mooring float – that would allow it to crawl up out of the water and dry off. There are plenty of hungry fish in the cove, but none of them were getting anywhere near this bug. I reached out with my paddle and sank a few of them as I went past, but there were too many of them out there. It’s over. We’re doomed.