Fish Fluorescence Widespread: 180 Species Found To Glow
Glowing fish A triplefin blennie under white light (top) and blue light (bottom). J. Sparks and D. Gruber When ichthyologist John Sparks set out to the Caribbean island of Little Cayman in 2011 with colleagues, the plan was to study fluorescence in corals. But a little green eel happened to pass by one of the cameras. When the researchers saw a picture of it later on their computers, it appeared to be glowing like a ghoul out of Ghostbusters, and they thought it might have been photoshopped as a joke. But no--it was real, and it was fluorescing, or emitting light after absorbing a specific type of radiation, in this case blue light cast by the scientists. That finding launched a study to see how widespread biofluorescence is in fish. The researchers...