Have you ever seen a field full of flickering fireflies? What about a video of glowing jellyfish or anglerfish in the deep sea? These animals aren’t the only glow-in-the-dark creatures on Earth. The most common ones, though, are much, much smaller.
Some plankton can glow in the dark. The word for this is “bioluminescence,” which comes from “bio,” meaning life, and “lumin,” meaning light. Most of these plankton glow blue, but a few can glow green, red, or orange.
Bioluminescent plankton don’t glow all of the time. It takes energy to make the chemicals that allow them to glow. It would be a waste of that energy to glow during the daytime, just like you would be wasting batteries if you used a flashlight on a sunny day.
Some plankton can glow in the dark. The word for this is “bioluminescence,” which comes from “bio,” meaning life, and “lumin,” meaning light. Most of these plankton glow blue, but a few can glow green, red, or orange.
Bioluminescent plankton don’t glow all of the time. It takes energy to make the chemicals that allow them to glow. It would be a waste of that energy to glow during the daytime, just like you would be wasting batteries if you used a flashlight on a sunny day.
One example of bioluminescent algae is a dinoflagellate called Noctiluca, or sea sparkle. Noctiluca are so small that thousands of them can fit in a single drop of water.
The glow produced by N. scintillans organisms can be perceived by humans as ghostly colored glow or bloom in the water, which appears when the water is disturbed. This gives N. scintillans the popular names "sea ghost" or "fire of sea".
In places like Bio-luminescent Bay in Puerto Rico, an island in the Caribbean, sea sparkle are so abundant that the water sparkles neon blue at night when you run your hand or a kayak paddle through it!
Scientists think that Noctiluca flashes to startle or scare away its predators. The bio-luminescence might also attract bigger predators to eat Noctiluca’s predators, just like a burglar alarm that alerts the police to come to someone’s house to catch a robber.
Scientists think that Noctiluca flashes to startle or scare away its predators. The bio-luminescence might also attract bigger predators to eat Noctiluca’s predators, just like a burglar alarm that alerts the police to come to someone’s house to catch a robber.
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