This one above I photographed on my recent trip back to Okinawa in the famous Churaumi Aquarium in the north part of the island. Just a mere baby, but what wonderful colours and textures! These things were about the size of a tennis ball, all soft and squishy and hovering in the water by moving the delicate ‘skirt’ fins encircling their bodies. Quite naturally, everyone that walked past was overcome with happiness at seeing the little bundles of joy.

I wouldn’t have ever imagined it, but seeing them in the wild up close really made me a fan. They’ve joined my list of favourite creatures, including frogs, jellyfish and the porcupine puffer :D.

P.S. No bioluminescence in this little creature, but some beautiful iridescence! Cuttlefish use chromatophores to change colour quite easily, blending in with the background and signalling mates.

First up, the Atlantic Footballfish (チョウチンアンコウ). Found 200-830m, the females grow to be as big as 60cm while the males barely stretch to 4cm! It uses the lantern on its head to attract prey.

Ahh, the Elongated Bristlemouth (オオヨコエソ). Grows up to around 27cm and lives at depths of 500-1200m. Named so for its barb-like teeth. Also has light-producing photophores in green or red on the head and underbelly.

A species of Deepsea Lobster (ドラゴンオサテエビ), found 250-820m. Quite rare and characterised by its large pincer and blindness from living in the black depths of the ocean. 12cm.

Ohh, here’s the Whitefin Dragonfish (ホテイエソ). About 30cm residing in depths of120-800m. It has a very big jaw and flexible bone structure allowing it to swallow large prey.

A species of Deepsea Shrimp (トゲヒラタエビ), found 600-1100m. A special little prawn this one – it has an abdominal locking mechanism and very hard outer shell. 9cm.

The Japanese Pancake Devilfish (メンダコ), about 20cm wide. Present in waters 60-1500m and known for swimming through the ocean flared open like an umbrella.

The Spiderfish (イトヒキイワシ) – also nicknamed the ‘Tripod Fish’ for the way it hangs its fins down below itself to create 3 long prongs. Length of 24cm and lives at a depth of 260-2800m.

So, I’ve gotta ask, who is your favourite? :p

The ovary of a deep sea anglerfish

And here’s anglerfish resting on a pinkie. Tiny! (Source: Whitman College)

And anglerfish looking fishy. (Source: Monterey Bay Aquarium)

Here’s the oral surface of a starfish. Be sure to floss now.

Aww, how cute! A lobster egg. Here, here little eggy…

By jove! I think that’s a whole finch testicle!

African clawed-frog tadpoles. Mmmmm….

Ugh… And THIS is just what we find in *one* drop of pondwater?

Freshwater dinoflagellate. Not sure about this one, but some forms are bioluminescent!

A fiery pit of anemone doom… Or just the mouth orifice.

A guppy fish embryo. Can we all say together..? Awwwww….

Giant liposomes. Yea, me too… What??

A little early, but here’s the first snowflake of the year.

A zebrafish larvae with fluorescent neurons. Tasty.

And lastly, some fruit-fly embryos that look suspiciously like skittles…

Alrighty! Be sure to check out the full list on the Nikon homepage! Definitely many more freakishly cool pictures there that I missed out ^^.

Oh, and tell me, what was your favourite picture here, and why?

It depicts me scuba diving at some unfathomable depth in the ocean (way too deep for real diving without a submersible) ‘meeting my maker’, in a philosophical sense. Goodness knows what a susuwatari (wandering soot, from the Ghibli movies Totoro and Spirited Away) is doing down there with me, but it has been a mascot of sorts for me for some time now. You can see in the background the bioluminescent jellyfish, featured in the image below, as well as Dave’s own creation of a deep sea monster with glowing luminescent lips. I wouldn’t like to be on the receiving end of a smooch from that guy!

(Image by E.Widder)

Thanks again Dave! Be sure to check out his blog for all sorts of Japanese-y goodness, including Fire Festivals, recipes, Japanese language practice and the report of the third Jblogger conference that I hosted on Edufire just recently!

Apparently the mushrooms only sprout for a few days in the rainy season, growing from fallen logs that are rotting on the forest floor. (The Japan Times)
Pink Tentacle also wrote about them some time ago. Reading from the a now unavailable Mainichi Shimbun article, he gives us some valuable background information:

The Mycena lux-coeli mushrooms, known locally as shii no tomobishi-dake (literally, “chinquapin glow mushrooms”), sprout from fallen chinquapin trees. As they grow, a chemical reaction involving luciferin (a light-emitting pigment contained within the mushrooms) occurs, causing them to glow a ghostly green.

Image from: Hachijo Kinoko Kenkyukai

This is the same reaction that occurs in many other bioluminescent organisms. An enzyme known as luciferese comes into contact with oxygen (it oxidises), and releases the energy as light – the green glowing that we can see in the mushrooms. Such is the dazzling effect of these mysterious mushrooms in the dark of the forest canopy that they were originally known to locals as ‘pigeon fire’:

In daylight, the 1- to 2-cm-wide mushrooms resemble Japan’s well-known brown enoki mushrooms, and for a long time they were thought to exist only on tiny Hachijo-jima Island 300 km south of Tokyo, where they were known to locals as hato-no-hi, which translates as “pigeon fire” — as they were scientifically named in 1954.

(The Japan Times)

Apparently during the humid summer months when people in Japan are enduring the annual blast of heavy rainfall, tours are led by volunteers such as Shigeru Nishigaito around the small, leafy island of Mesameyama in Ugui, Wakayama. I was unlucky that I was in Japan just after the rainy season this summer, but I hope I get the chance to go and wander around the forests myself sometime in the future. I’d definitely need a high-ISO camera and a tripod to capture these fungi though!

Have you ever seen glowing mushrooms or vegetation where you live?

And Merry Christmas all!

According to the author of Pink Tentacle where I found the videos (which is not a dodgy site, even though it sounds rather risqué!), the video is of a Japanese TV program “Best House 123″ and features a Hokkaido University professor, Yoshihiro Omiya, a specialist in studying bioluminescent organisms (Source). I suddenly have a feeling that my next trip in Japan will be heading North, most likely hitch-hiking, to try and meet this guy! Maybe I can steal some of the blue-glowing plankton he reportedly keeps in the fridge!

Funnily enough, it was also Hokkaido where I first came across the Clione – the sea butterfly – that looks like a type of root vegetable undergoing an x-ray. (And that’s the best imagery you are going to get that doesn’t involve any jokes relating to phalluses!) You can even see the ‘heart’! Check out that post here if you’re interested ^^: Clione

Without further ado: Luminesce!

Bioluminescence and Light in The Deep

Bioluminescence, a form of Chemiluminescence, is simply an organism’s ability to produce light by a chemical reaction. While there are several examples of this phenomenon on land – in certain types of fungus, bacteria or luminous insects, such as the firefly – the ocean harbours many more organisms capable of producing light. This report will examine some of the instances and affects of bioluminescence and light in the deep ocean, within the realms of the little knowledge currently held in this field.

Bioluminescence in a population of dinoflagellates (single-celled algae)

Sunlight decreases in intensity by a factor of 10 approximately for every 75m descent (http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/), meaning only a negligible amount of light ever reaches the seabed in much deeper areas. The diagram below shows sunlight attenuation in the photic zone (0-200m) and spectral distribution:

http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/

Light penetration in coastal waters is different due primarily to phytoplankton and other matter present, scattering and absorbing light in different ways. The phytoplankton contain chlorophyll, which has optimal absorption at wavelengths 430nm (violet) and 670nm (red) (http://www.oceansonline.com), thus causing coastal waters to appear green

Not only is the intensity of light dramatically reduced as one descends, but the colour is also affected. The molecules in the water absorb longer, lower energy wavelengths such as red light very easily but the shorter, higher energy wavelengths such as blue light are able to penetrate much deeper (the exception being violet light). Blue light is scattered most by the water molecules, giving rise to the general blue colour in the ocean (and also the sky, because such a large part of the atmosphere contains water).

Due to the lack of long wavelength (red) light reaching the deeper waters, the ‘twilight’ zone (200-1000m) is thus home to many organisms with pigments that only reflect red light, causing them to appear black. In contrast, organisms in the photic zone are generally more blue-green, often with light undersides and dark backs to disguise their silhouette to predators. For example, a predator looking down at its prey from above would see the prey’s dark back against the darkness of the depths of the sea. A predator looking up at its prey from below would see the prey’s light underbelly against the sunlight shining around it. In both instances the prey is camouflaged because it has suitable colours to help hide itself in the different light conditions.

Colouration of organisms related to depth

An interesting use of bioluminescence can be seen in the mesopelagic squid. Rather than just having a light-coloured underbelly to reduce silhouetting against the sunlight in shallower waters, the squid uses its photophores (light-producing organs) to counterilluminate the ocean skylight (http://www.lifesci.ucsb.edu/~biolum/). The squid is also temperature-sensitive, turning on blue and green photophores when ascending the cool waters of the evening (as the moonlight has not been filtered to a deep blue colour) and then only blue when descending again as the sun rises.

Virtually no light is able to penetrate below 1000m (the aphotic zone). Most marine organisms at these depths are sensitive only to blue light, which explains why the majority of bioluminescence here is blue itself. From the research of marine scientists such as Dr. Edith Widder, several uses for bioluminescence can be suggested: for defence (to scare off or attract predators, depending on the situation), attracting mates through special flashing patterns or shapes or for luring prey.

Atolla jellyfish and its display of bioluminescence

Perhaps most obviously, it can be used to illuminate the dark of the ocean in search of food. One particular family of fish, the malacosteid family, is able to produce and detect red light (http://www.lifesci.ucsb.edu/~biolum/). Although it doesn’t travel far in the darkness, most other fish aren’t sensitive to the long wavelengths, so it gives the fish a distinct advantage when hunting.

Research into bioluminescence and indeed life in general in the depths of the ocean is still relatively young. The abundance of new species is gratifying, but the tricky part is understanding how life operates at these depths. Certainly, with advancements in technology we can explore for longer and at greater depths and are sure to learn more about the life present there in the world with little light.

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Bibliography

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http://www.oceansonline.com/light_in_the_sea.htm

Haddock, S.H.D.; McDougall, C.M.; Case, J.F. The Bioluminescence Web Page, http://lifesci.ucsb.edu/~biolum/ (created 1997; updated 2005; accessed 27/11/05)
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Harbour Branch Oceanographic Institution. “Welcome to Harbour Branch Oceanographic”, http://www.hboi.edu/ (accessed 27/11/05)
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Page, Michael Le. The light at the bottom of the sea, New Scientist Vol 188 No 2525 (12th November 2005). Reed Business Information Ltd. p48

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