Waitomo: Caves formation and Glowworm

The caves in Waitomo are dotted with the lights of thousands of glowworms looking like starts in the sky.

 The Waitomo Glowworm Caves were first explored in 1887 by local Maori Chief Tane Tinorau accompanied by an English surveyor Fred Mace.
As they entered the caves, their first discovery was the Glowworm with tiny bright lights dotting the cave ceiling. 

Glowworm is the common name for various groups of insect larvae and adult larviform females that glow through bioluminescence.

The purpose of the glow varies. Those adult females that glow do so to attract a male for mating.

A male glow-worm fly mates with a female just as she emerges from her pupa. The female then begins to lay her eggs, and dies immediately afterwards. Male flies live for about four days and probably manage to mate a few times before they die.

It's so unfair even in insect women sacrifice their lives for their babies.

I got a little video for you guys that explains what the Glowworm are about. 

Waitomo has about 300 caves, 100 of them mapped the rest still yet to discover. 

Did you know that cave were not there one day?? 

Here is how caves were formed: 

Water create holes in the rock deep underground. If the hole gets big enough they become caves. 

Over the last 30 million years, the area we know today Waitomo was formed as a result of geological and volcanic activity. A lot of the caves have areas you can walk on them like the one below.