A red octopus that drifts through deep waters off the eastern United States shines in a novel way: Its suckers flash on and off. /nIn 1997, Widder brought a live, foot-long specimen from the Gulf of Maine back to a lab. When the researchers turned off the lights, the suckers glowed blue-green, emitting the most light at 470 nanometers, a wavelength that travels well underwater. "It's kind of a twinkling effect," Widder says./nSuch a glimpse into the evolutionary history of a bioluminescent structure holds special interest because of its rarity, notes Widder. Tracing histories of light organs has proved difficult because "there's no fossil record for bioluminescence bioluminescence (bī'ōl'mĭnĕs`əns), production of light by living organisms...... .," she laments. NOAA - http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov
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Tags: Bioluminescence Ocean
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