Many scientists think that deep-sea fish could use bioluminescence as badges of identity, allowing them to recognises others of their own kind and to mate with partners of the right species. They can use their light not just to lure prey or hide from predators, but to communicate with each other. While ponyfishes have to rely on body parts that obscure the continuous glow of their microbes, lanternfishes and dragonfishes can turn their glows on or off, using nerves that feed into their light organs. Why?ĭavis thinks it’s because they can exert greater control over their light. In the relatively short time they’ve been around, they’ve accumulated far more species than is normal, and far more so than lineages that got together with glowing bacteria. These groups aren’t just diverse, but unexpectedly so. “They’re among the most abundant vertebrates on the planet in terms of mass, but the average person doesn’t know anything about them,” says Davis. The lanternfishes are similarly prolific the 250 or so species account for around 65 percent of the fish in the deep sea by weight. They include the bristlemouth, the most common back-boned animal on the planet hundred of trillions of them lurk in the deep ocean. There are around 420 species of dragonfishes, most of which have long bodies and nightmarish faces armed with sharp teeth. Those intrinsic light-producers have come to dominate the open oceans. “To me, this is much less interesting than fishes that have their own chemical and genetic machinery.” “If one species of bacteria evolves the ability to glow, then is eaten and proliferates in the guts of four different fishes, you could argue that bioluminescence evolved once in the bacterium,” he says. Ponyfishes kept the microbes in their throats, and controlled the light they produced by evolving muscular shutters and translucent windows.īut to Steven Haddock from the Monterery Bay Aquarium Research Institute, these partnerships are fundamentally different from cases where fish evolved their own intrinsic light. Deep-sea anglerfishes housed the microbes in their back fins, which they transformed into complex lures. Of those 27 origins, 17 involve partnerships with glowing bacteria, which the fish took up from the surrounding water. By marking out the bioluminescent lineages, they report Wednesday in the journal PLOS ONE that these animals they report Wednesday in the journal PLOS ONE that these animals they report Wednesday in the journal PLOS ONE that these animals independently evolved their own light at least 27 times. Together with John Sparks and Leo Smith, Davis built a family tree of ray-finned fish-the group that includes some 99 percent of fish species. ![]() Cloud State University, “but the actual number was considerably higher.” “We thought it might be a dozen or so just by eyeballing a list,” says Matthew Davis from St. Others formed partnerships with luminous bacteria, developing organs for housing these microscopic beacons.ĭespite the obvious diversity of bioluminescent fish, no one knew exactly how often these animals evolved their self-made light. Some came to generate it on their own, through chemical reactions within their own cells. ![]() They evolved their glow in a variety of ways. ![]() Today, some 1,500 fish species are bioluminescent-able to make their own light. They have luminous fishing lures coming out of their heads, glowing stripes on their flanks, bright goatees dangling from their chins, flashing headlamps beneath their eyes, or radiant bellies that cancel out their silhouettes to predators watching from below. During the Cretaceous period, while flowers and tyrant dinosaurs were spreading over the land, and pterosaurs and birds were taking over the skies, in the oceans, fish were starting to glow.
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