As a boy in the 1960s, David Wagner would run around his family¡¯s Missouri farm with a glass jar clutched in his hand, scooping flickering fireflies out of the sky.

¡°We could fill it up and put it by our bedside at night,¡± says Wagner, now an entomologist.

That¡¯s all gone, the family farm now paved over with new homes and manicured lawns. And Wagner¡¯s beloved fireflies ¡ª like so many insects worldwide ¡ª have largely vanished in what scientists are calling the global Insect Apocalypse.