{"id":2618,"date":"2025-02-05T00:39:00","date_gmt":"2025-02-05T06:39:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ourowncorner.com\/themintgirl\/?p=2618"},"modified":"2025-01-21T08:39:45","modified_gmt":"2025-01-21T14:39:45","slug":"the-glowworm-caves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ourowncorner.com\/themintgirl\/2025\/02\/05\/the-glowworm-caves\/","title":{"rendered":"The Glowworm Caves"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>While in New Zealand, one of the places we went to was the Waitomo and Ruakuri Caves- caves famous for their glow worms. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The glow worms are the larvae of fungus gnats and them glowing is how they signal when they&#8217;re hungry. The light attracts smaller insects like moths and flies and as they fly closer, they&#8217;re caught in the glowworms&#8217; sticky threads and eaten. Eventually, the glowworms form pupa and turn into the fungus gnats. However, these gnats are born without a mouth and a digestive system, clearly not born to survive. They live for around a week or two.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The first cave we visited was the most famous- the Waitomo cave. In these caves, we explored the vast caverns and got to go on a boat ride to view the glowworms from all angles. They didn&#8217;t allow pictures, but the experience was legendary and will always be a part of me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Secondly, we visited the Ruakuri cave, where we were able to take pictures! Other than the glowworms, the cave also had a ton of gorgeous stalagmites and stalagtites, as well as fossils from years past!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-gallery has-nested-images columns-2 is-cropped wp-block-gallery-1 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"768\" height=\"1024\" data-id=\"2625\" src=\"https:\/\/ourowncorner.com\/themintgirl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/glowworm-768x1024.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2625\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ourowncorner.com\/themintgirl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/glowworm-768x1024.png 768w, https:\/\/ourowncorner.com\/themintgirl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/glowworm-225x300.png 225w, https:\/\/ourowncorner.com\/themintgirl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/glowworm-1152x1536.png 1152w, https:\/\/ourowncorner.com\/themintgirl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/glowworm-1536x2048.png 1536w, https:\/\/ourowncorner.com\/themintgirl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/glowworm-1200x1600.png 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 709px) 85vw, (max-width: 909px) 67vw, (max-width: 984px) 61vw, (max-width: 1362px) 45vw, 600px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"768\" height=\"1024\" data-id=\"2626\" src=\"https:\/\/ourowncorner.com\/themintgirl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/glowworm-mucus-768x1024.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2626\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ourowncorner.com\/themintgirl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/glowworm-mucus-768x1024.png 768w, https:\/\/ourowncorner.com\/themintgirl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/glowworm-mucus-225x300.png 225w, https:\/\/ourowncorner.com\/themintgirl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/glowworm-mucus-1152x1536.png 1152w, https:\/\/ourowncorner.com\/themintgirl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/glowworm-mucus-1536x2048.png 1536w, https:\/\/ourowncorner.com\/themintgirl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/glowworm-mucus-1200x1600.png 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 709px) 85vw, (max-width: 909px) 67vw, (max-width: 984px) 61vw, (max-width: 1362px) 45vw, 600px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"768\" height=\"1024\" data-id=\"2624\" src=\"https:\/\/ourowncorner.com\/themintgirl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/ruakuri--768x1024.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2624\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ourowncorner.com\/themintgirl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/ruakuri--768x1024.png 768w, https:\/\/ourowncorner.com\/themintgirl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/ruakuri--225x300.png 225w, https:\/\/ourowncorner.com\/themintgirl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/ruakuri--1152x1536.png 1152w, https:\/\/ourowncorner.com\/themintgirl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/ruakuri--1536x2048.png 1536w, https:\/\/ourowncorner.com\/themintgirl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/ruakuri--1200x1600.png 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 709px) 85vw, (max-width: 909px) 67vw, (max-width: 984px) 61vw, (max-width: 1362px) 45vw, 600px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"768\" height=\"1024\" data-id=\"2623\" src=\"https:\/\/ourowncorner.com\/themintgirl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/stagaltite-768x1024.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2623\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ourowncorner.com\/themintgirl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/stagaltite-768x1024.png 768w, https:\/\/ourowncorner.com\/themintgirl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/stagaltite-225x300.png 225w, https:\/\/ourowncorner.com\/themintgirl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/stagaltite-1152x1536.png 1152w, https:\/\/ourowncorner.com\/themintgirl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/stagaltite-1536x2048.png 1536w, https:\/\/ourowncorner.com\/themintgirl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/stagaltite-1200x1600.png 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 709px) 85vw, (max-width: 909px) 67vw, (max-width: 984px) 61vw, (max-width: 1362px) 45vw, 600px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>While in New Zealand, one of the places we went to was the Waitomo and Ruakuri Caves- caves famous for their glow worms. The glow worms are the larvae of fungus gnats and them glowing is how they signal when they&#8217;re hungry. The light attracts smaller insects like moths and flies and as they fly &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/ourowncorner.com\/themintgirl\/2025\/02\/05\/the-glowworm-caves\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;The Glowworm Caves&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38,68,14,2,1,93,384],"tags":[1434,1439,1435,1436,11,1427,1438,5,1437],"class_list":["post-2618","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hobbies","category-holiday","category-information","category-travel","category-uncategorized","category-writing","category-writing-hobbies","tag-caves","tag-fungus-gnat","tag-glowworm","tag-glowworm-caves","tag-mint-girl","tag-new-zealand","tag-ruakuri","tag-travel","tag-waitomo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ourowncorner.com\/themintgirl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2618","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ourowncorner.com\/themintgirl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ourowncorner.com\/themintgirl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ourowncorner.com\/themintgirl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ourowncorner.com\/themintgirl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2618"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ourowncorner.com\/themintgirl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2618\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2627,"href":"https:\/\/ourowncorner.com\/themintgirl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2618\/revisions\/2627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ourowncorner.com\/themintgirl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ourowncorner.com\/themintgirl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ourowncorner.com\/themintgirl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}