Bioluminescence: Aliens in the ocean

When the first bioluminescent creatures were discovered most researchers believed that the belonged to a very isolated sub-population of marine life. However, as more and more deep-sea submersibles explore the darkened depths of the ocean more and more glow in the dark fish are appearing. There are plankton, squid, fish, shrimp, jelly-fish and many other marine-organisms that have this amazing ability to produce light. You might wonder why do you need to produce light if you are a fish at the bottom of the ocean? Well some fish emit the light as part of a mating display, others like the shrimp have the capacity to emit a jet of a bioluminescent chemical that can temporarily blind a predator and give the shrimp a chance to escape. And as Edith Widder demonstrates in the Ted Talk below, some jellyfish actually use different pulses of light to communicate. To learn more watch the video below and be amazed by these alien like creatures that live at the bottom of the ocean,