Sometimes red sprites have huge cascading features filled with complex streaks and beading. They occur so high up in the atmosphere that no one can get close and study them. Theories exists as to why certain morphologies and characteristics form but no-one really knows for sure what is going on in a sprite complex- all we can really do is observe , analyze and report.

"It is important to note that the beads often do not develop in the initial tendril development phase, but may appear over a few ms after the tendril onset. Further, they do not appear to decay in brightness with the main sprite structures, but will often remain visible for some considerable time after the main sprite has vanished from sight. We have examples where individual beads last for more than 100 ms. This is likely longer than the duration of the mesospheric electric fields following the initial low-altitude lightning strike, which caused the sprite event. We take this to suggest that the main sprite event initiates secondary localized processes that are likely to be chemical in nature (Stenbaek-Nielson , 2000)