Glow is considered a common phenomenon in nature. Therefore, the ability to emit light using a simple chemical reaction, or bioluminescence, occurs in at least 50 various types mushrooms, fireflies and even terrifying sea creatures. With the help of this reaction, luminous creatures derive many benefits for themselves: they drive away predators, attract prey, rid their cells of oxygen, or simply cope with existence in the eternal darkness of the depths of the ocean.

One way or another, luminescence is one of the most ingenious tools of life, and we will present you a list of the most unusual and strange creatures, capable of glowing in the dark. Many of these species are currently on display at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.

Female and male monkfish

Hell Squid

Glowing jellyfish

What unusual and amazing creatures not found in the sea or in the depths of the ocean. The following green-rimmed purple creatures live in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of North America. These jellyfish are capable of generating two types of glow at once. Bioluminescent has a purple-blue glow and is produced by a chemical reaction between calcium and protein. And this reaction, in turn, causes a glow around the jellyfish’s rim, forming a green fluorescent protein, and then a green glow. Scientists widely use this feature of the creature to study the visualization of processes in the body.

firewater

Surely few people know that in nature there is a phenomenon that can be compared to a luminous ocean. However, no one would refuse to watch the bright blue neon surf of the ocean with their own eyes. The thing is that the water is filled with dinoflagellates, single-celled planktonic creatures with tails, which are distributed over impressive areas off the coast. Scientists believe that these creatures have inhabited our planet for a billion years, and for the last few millennia, puzzled people have been inclined to attribute this phenomenon to the mysterious magic of the sea gods.

Big Mouth

To hunt for food, this fish first uses bioluminescence to produce fluorescence in the form of red lights in the area near its nose, and then emits red pulses to detect shrimp. When prey is found, an unlock signal is sent and the jaw is activated. The ingenious predator takes advantage of the fact that shrimp, like many other inhabitants of the sea, cannot recognize red light.

Systellaspis shrimp

However, not all shrimp are so pliable and easily accessible to predators. For example, sistellaspis shrimp have excellent protection, including against largemouth. These shrimp disarm predators by spitting a nasty, glowing liquid from their tail right in front of their mouths.

Coral wall

A 1,000-foot-tall blood wall made of glowing coral has been discovered in the Cayman Islands. This interesting phenomenon became possible due to the fact that many bioluminescent creatures found refuge here. Many scuba divers enthusiastically take pictures of how the corals transform their red color into an amazing green glow.

A modern “goldfish” should be nanosized and fluoresce with greenish light

For many years, green fluorescent protein (GFP) seemed like a useless biochemical curiosity, but in the 1990s it became a valuable tool in biology. This unique natural molecule fluoresces no worse than synthetic dyes, but unlike them, it is harmless. With the help of GFP, you can see how a cell divides, how an impulse travels along a nerve fiber, or how metastases “spread” throughout the body of a laboratory animal. Today, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry is awarded to three scientists working in the United States for the discovery and development of this protein.

To get the first portion of the new protein, the researchers caught jellyfish with hand nets - throwing a net, like the old man from Pushkin’s fairy tale. The most amazing thing is that the strange protein isolated from these jellyfish from the jellyfish after a few decades became a real “goldfish” that performs the most cherished desires cell biologists.

What is GFP?

GFP belongs to the largest and most diverse group of molecules in living organisms that are responsible for many biological functions: proteins. He really Green colour, despite the fact that most proteins are not colored (hence their name - protein).

The few colored proteins have their color due to the presence of non-protein molecules - “makeweights”. For example, the hemoglobin in our blood consists of a non-protein red-brown heme molecule and a colorless protein part - globin. GFP is a pure protein without “additives”: a chain molecule that consists of colorless “links” - amino acids. But after synthesis, if not a miracle, then at least a trick occurs: the chain curls up into a “ball”, acquiring a green color and the ability to emit light.

In jellyfish cells, GFP works in tandem with another protein that emits blue light. GFP absorbs this light and emits green. Why the deep-sea jellyfish Aequorea victoria glows green, scientists still do not understand. With fireflies, everything is simple: during the mating season, the female lights a “beacon” for the males - a kind of marriage announcement: green, 5 mm tall, looking for a life partner.

In the case of jellyfish, this explanation does not fit: they cannot actively move and resist currents, so even if they give signals to each other, they themselves are not able to swim “to the light.”

Osamu Shimomura: You can't pull out a jellyfish without difficulty

It all started in the 1950s, when Osamu Shimomura began studying the deep-sea luminous jellyfish Aequorea victoria at the Friday Harbor Marine Laboratory in the United States. It is difficult to imagine a more “idle” scientific curiosity: the bespectacled people became interested in why an unknown gelatinous creature glows in the darkness of the deep sea. If I studied jellyfish venom, it would be easier to imagine the prospect of practical application.

It turned out that it is impossible to catch jellyfish with an industrial trawl: they are seriously injured, so we had to catch them with hand nets. To facilitate "creative" scientific work under the leadership of a persistent Japanese, they designed a special machine for cutting jellyfish.

But scientific curiosity, coupled with Japanese meticulousness, yielded results. In 1962, Shimomura and colleagues published an article in which they reported on the discovery of a new protein called GFP. The most interesting thing is that Shimomura was not interested in GFP, but in another jellyfish protein, aequorin. GFP was discovered as a “related product.” By 1979, Shimomura and colleagues had characterized in detail the structure of GFP, which was, of course, interesting, but only for a few specialists.

Martin Chalfie: jellyfish protein without jellyfish

The breakthrough came in the late 1980s and early 1990s, led by Martin Chalfie, the second of the trio of Nobel laureates. Using methods genetic engineering(which formed 15-20 years after the discovery of GFP), scientists learned to insert the GFP gene into bacteria, and then into complex organisms, and forced them to synthesize this protein.

It was previously thought that in order to acquire fluorescent properties, GFP required a unique biochemical “environment” that exists in the body of the jellyfish. Chalfie proved that full-fledged luminescent GFP can also be formed in other organisms, a single gene is enough. Now scientists had this protein “under cover”: not in the depths of the sea, but always at hand and in unlimited quantities. Unprecedented prospects for practical application have opened up.

Genetic engineering allows the GFP gene to be inserted not just “somewhere”, but attached to the gene for a specific protein that interests the researcher. As a result, this protein is synthesized with a luminous label, which allows it to be seen under a microscope against the background of thousands of other cell proteins.

The revolutionary nature of GFP is that it allows you to “mark” a protein in a living cell, and the cell itself synthesizes it, and in the era before GFP, almost all microscopy was done on “fixed” preparations. Essentially, biochemists studied “snapshots” of biological processes “at the time of death,” assuming that everything in the drug remained as it was during life. Now it is possible to observe and record on video many biological processes in a living organism.

Roger Tsien's Fruit Stand

The third Nobel laureate, in general, did not “discover” anything. Armed with others' knowledge of GFP and methods genetic engineering, in the laboratory of Roger Tsien (Qian Yongjian, Roger Y. Tsien), scientists began to create “in the image and likeness” of new fluorescent proteins that better suited their needs. The significant disadvantages of “natural” GFP have been eliminated. In particular, protein from jellyfish glows brightly when irradiated with ultraviolet light, but for studying living cells it is much better to use visible light. In addition, the “natural” protein is a tetramer (the molecules are assembled in groups of four). Imagine that four spies (GFP) must monitor four individuals (“marked squirrels”), all the while holding hands.

By changing individual structural elements of the protein, Tsien and his colleagues developed modifications of GFP that were free of these and a number of other disadvantages. They are now used by scientists around the world. In addition, Tsien's team created a "rainbow" of fluorescent proteins, ranging from blue to red-violet. Tsien named his colorful proteins after fruits of the corresponding colors: mBanana, tdTomato, mStrawberry (strawberry), mCherry (cherry), mPlum (plum) and so on.

Tsien made the list of his developments look like a fruit stand not only for the purpose of popularization. According to him, just as there is no one best fruit for all cases, there is no one best fluorescent protein: for each specific case you need to choose “your” protein (and now there is plenty to choose from). An arsenal of multi-colored proteins is needed when scientists want to simultaneously monitor several types of objects in one cell (this usually happens).

A new step in the design of fluorescent proteins was the creation of “photoactivatable” proteins. They do not fluoresce (and therefore are not visible under a microscope) until a researcher “lights” them with the help of short-term irradiation with a specially selected laser. The laser beam is similar to the highlight function in computer applications. If a scientist is not interested in all protein molecules, but only in one specific place and starting from certain point, then you can “select” this area using a laser beam, and then observe what happens to these molecules. For example, you can “activate” one of dozens of chromosomes, and then watch how it “travels” throughout the cell during division, and the remaining chromosomes will not get in the way.

Now scientists have gone even further: fluorescent chameleon proteins have recently been created, which, after special irradiation, change color, and these changes are reversible: you can “switch” the molecule from one color to another many times. This further expands the possibilities of studying processes in a living cell.

Thanks to developments in the last decade, fluorescent proteins have become one of the main tools for cell research. About seventeen thousand scientific articles have already been published about GFP alone or research using it. In 2006, the Friday Harbor laboratory where GFP was discovered erected a monument depicting the GFP molecule, 1.4 m high, that is, about a hundred million times larger than the original.

GFP from the Aequorea jellyfish is the best evidence that humans need to protect the diversity of “useless” species of wild animals. Some twenty years ago, no one would have imagined that an exotic protein from an unknown jellyfish would become the main tool of cell biology of the 21st century. Over a hundred million years, evolution created a molecule with unique properties, which no scientist or computer could construct “from scratch.” Each of the hundreds of thousands of plant and animal species synthesizes thousands of its own biological molecules, the vast majority of which have not yet been studied. Perhaps this vast living archive contains much of what humanity will one day need.

The increasing availability of “high technology” molecular biology has led to the fact that luminous proteins began to be used not only in serious research.

Green fluorescent lard

In 2000, at the request of contemporary artist Eduardo Kac, a French geneticist “made” a green fluorescent rabbit named Alba. The experiment had no scientific goals: Alba was a “work of art” by the artist Katz in the direction he invented - transgenic art. Rabbit (sorry, piece of art Katz) was shown at various exhibitions, press conferences and other events that attracted a lot of attention.

In 2002, Alba died unexpectedly, and a scandal arose around the unfortunate animal in the press due to contradictions between the scientist-performer and the artist-customer. Defending their colleague from Katz’s attacks, French geneticists, for example, argued that Alba is actually not as green and luminous as she looks in photographs. But if we are talking about art, why not embellish it using Photoshop?

Human genetic engineering is contrary to medical ethics, so it is unlikely that fluorescent proteins will be used in legal medical institutions for diagnostics and similar purposes. However, it can be assumed that beauty salons and other less controlled establishments will be interested in the new opportunities. Imagine, for example, natural nails or lips (no varnishes or lipsticks!), which change color depending on the lighting and even glow in the dark if someone likes... Or a pattern on the skin formed by its own fluorescent cells, which becomes visible, only if you shine it with a special lamp, instead of tattoos, which are looked at by everyone and are difficult to remove.

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Bioluminescence is the ability of living organisms to glow. It is based on chemical processes in which the released energy is released in the form of light. Bioluminescence serves to attract prey, mates, communication, warning, camouflage or deterrence.

Scientists believe that bioluminescence appeared at the stage of transition from anaerobic to aerobic forms of life as a protective reaction of ancient bacteria towards the “poison” - oxygen, which was released by green plants during photosynthesis. Bioluminescence is found in bacteria, fungi and a fairly wide range of representatives of the animal class - from protozoa to chordates. But it is especially common among crustaceans, insects and fish.

Bacteria help organisms “create” light, or they cope with this task on their own. In this case, light can be emitted both by the entire surface of the body and by special organs - glands, mainly of skin origin. The latter are present in many marine animals, and among terrestrial animals - in insects, some earthworms, centipedes, etc.

Common firefly

Perhaps the most famous of the bioluminescents. Firefly family ( Lampyridae) has about 2000 species. The tropics and subtropics boast the greatest diversity of these beetles, but in the territory former USSR There were only seven genera and about 20 species of these insects. Well, they need light not at all “so that we have light on the darkest night,” but for communication with each other, be it calling signals of males in search of females, mimicry (under ambient lighting, for example, the light of a light bulb or the Moon illuminating the grass ), territory protection, etc.

Common firefly / ©Flickr

Nochesvetka

Noctiluca scintillans, or nocturnal light, belongs to the species of so-called dinoflagellates. They are sometimes also called dinoflagellate algae due to their ability to photosynthesize. In fact, most of them are flagellates with a developed intracellular shell. It is dinoflagellates that are responsible for the famous “red tides,” phenomena that are as frightening as they are beautiful. But especially magnificent, of course, is the blue “illumination” of nocturnal lights, which can be observed at night in the waters of seas, oceans and lakes. Both the red color and the blue glow are caused by the abundance of these amazing tiny organisms in the water.

Water “illuminated” by night lights / ©Flickr

Angler

This innocent species of anglerfish gets its name bony fish received thanks to his extremely unattractive appearance. Judge for yourself:

Deep sea monkfish / ©Flickr

Sea devils have a “bad bite,” which is why their mouth is constantly open and sharp, spiked teeth protrude from it. The body of the fish is covered with a large number of skin growths, tubercles and plaques. It is not surprising that these marine “quasimodos” prefer to live at great depths - apparently, this is how they hide from unkind eyes. But seriously, these fish are very interesting. They are distinguished from other inhabitants of the underwater world, among other things, by the front part of the dorsal fin, which is located directly above the mouth. This glowing “flashlight” is needed by monkfish not to illuminate their path, but to attract prey.

Fungus gnats

No less surprising are other bioluminescents - a genus of fungus gnats from the fungus gnat family. Previously this genus was called Bolitiphila, which means “mushroom lover.” It has now been renamed to Arachnocampa- “spider larva”. The fact is that the larva of this mosquito weaves real webs. Having just hatched into the world, the larvae are only 3-5 mm long, but in the final stage of development they grow up to 3 cm. It is in the larval stage that these mosquitoes spend most of their lives, therefore, in order to feed and attract prey, they weave on on the ceiling of the caves there is something like a nest of silk, hanging down the ends of sticky threads, which are illuminated by their own body. Distributed in caves and grottos in Australia and New Zealand.

Fungus gnat larvae / ©Flickr

neon mushroom

Unfortunately, this is a miracle of nature - a stunningly beautiful luminescent mushroom Chlorophos Mycena– you won’t find it in our area. To see it, you should go to Japan or Brazil. And even there you will have to wait for the rainy season, when these amazing green mushrooms appear from literally “flaming” spores.

Whether this miracle is edible or not is unknown. However, few people would dare to serve such a luminous plate to the table. If you decide to look for it, we recommend looking at the base of tree trunks, next to fallen or cut branches, piles of leaves, or simply on damp soil.

Neon mushrooms / ©Flickr

Giant squid

This is the largest bioluminescent squid ( Taningia danae) and probably the most beautiful view these animals in general. Science knows of a specimen whose length was 2.3 m and its weight was about 161 kg! However, it is not so easy to see this majestic beauty: it lives at a depth of about 1000 m and is found in tropical and subtropical waters. Despite the beauty Taningia danae- an aggressive predator. Before pouncing on its prey, the squid emits short flashes of light using special bodies located on the tentacles. What are these flashes for? Well, obviously not to “warn” the victim. Scientists believe that they are needed either to blind deep-sea inhabitants or to estimate the distance to a target. A colorful show also helps the animal seduce a female.

Giant bioluminescent squid / ©Flickr


V. LUNKEVICH.

Valeryan Viktorovich Lunkevich (1866-1941) - biologist, teacher, outstanding popularizer.

Rice. 1. Night light "Sea candle".

Rice. 3. Angler fish.

Rice. 4. Glowing fish.

Rice. 6. Coral branch with glowing polyps.

Rice. 5. Luminous cephalopod.

Rice. 7. Female firefly.

Rice. 8. Luminous organ in a cephalopod: a - light part, reminiscent of a lens; b - inner layer of luminous cells; c - layer of silver cells; d - layer of dark pigment cells.

Who among us has not had the opportunity to admire the warm summer evening greenish lights of fireflies, like arrows cutting through the air in different directions? But how many people know that not only some bugs, but also other animals, especially the inhabitants of the seas and oceans, are endowed with the ability to glow?

Everyone who spent the summer on the shores of the Black Sea has more than once witnessed one of the most beautiful spectacles of nature.

Night is coming. The sea is calm. Small ripples slide across its surface. Suddenly, a light strip flashed on the crest of one of the nearest waves. Behind her flashed another, a third... There are many of them. They will sparkle for a moment and fade along with the broken wave, only to light up again. You stand and look, enchanted, at the millions of lights flooding the sea with their light, and you ask - what’s the matter?

This riddle has long been solved by science. It turns out that light is emitted by billions of microscopic creatures known as nightlights (Fig. 1). Warm summer water favors their reproduction, and they then rush across the sea in countless hordes. In the body of each such nocturnal light, yellowish balls are scattered, which emit light.

Let us now “move forward” to one of the tropical seas and plunge into its waters. Here the picture is even more magnificent. Here some strange animals float either in a sedate crowd or alone: ​​they look like umbrellas or bells made of dense jelly. These are jellyfish: large and small, dark and glowing in blue, green, yellow, or reddish. Among these moving multi-colored “lanterns” a giant jellyfish, whose umbrella is sixty to seventy centimeters across, floats calmly, slowly (Fig. 2). Fishes emitting light are visible in the distance. The moon fish rushes headlong, like the moon among other luminous star fish. One of the fish has brightly burning eyes, another has a process on its head, the top of which resembles a lit electric lamp, the third has a long cord with a “flashlight” at the end dangling from the upper jaw (Fig. 3), and some luminous fish are completely filled with radiance thanks to special organs located along their body like light bulbs strung on a wire (Fig. 4).

We go down below - to where the light of the sun no longer penetrates, where, it would seem, there should be eternal, impenetrable darkness. And here and there “lights are burning”; and here the darkness of the night is cut through by rays emanating from the body of various luminous animals.

On seabed, among the stones and algae, glowing worms and mollusks swarm. Their naked bodies are dotted with shiny stripes, spots or specks, like diamond dust; on the ledges of underwater rocks there are starfish flooded with light; The crayfish immediately dives into all corners of its hunting territory, illuminating the path in front of it with huge, spyglass-like eyes.

But the most magnificent of all is one of the cephalopods: it is completely bathed in rays of bright blue color (Fig. 5). One moment - and the light went out: as if an electric chandelier had been turned off. Then the light appears again - at first weak, then more and more bright, now it is cast in purple - the colors of the sunset. And then it goes out again, only to flare up again for a few minutes with the color of delicate green foliage.

IN underwater world You can also see other colorful paintings.

Let us remember the well-known sprig of red coral. This branch is the home of very simple animals - polyps. Polyps live in vast colonies that look like bushes. Polyps build their home from lime or horny substance. Such dwellings are called polypnyaks, and a branch of red coral is a particle of a polypnyak. Underwater rocks in some places are completely covered with a whole grove of coral bushes of different shapes and colors (Fig. 6) with many tiny chambers in which sit hundreds of thousands of polyps - animals that look like little white flowers. On many polyp forests, the polyps seem to be engulfed in flames formed by numerous lights. The lights sometimes burn unevenly and intermittently, changing color: they will suddenly sparkle with a violet light, then turning into red, or they will sparkle with a pale blue and, having run through a whole range of transitions from blue to green, freeze at the color of emerald or go out, forming black shadows around themselves, and there again the iridescent sparks will flare up.

There are luminous animals among the inhabitants of land: these are almost entirely beetles. There are six species of such beetles in Europe. In tropical countries there are much more of them. They all make up one family of lampyrids, that is, fireflies. The “illumination” sometimes performed by these bugs is a very spectacular spectacle.

One night I was on a train from Florence to Rome. Suddenly my attention was attracted by sparks flying near the carriage. At first, they could have been mistaken for sparks emitted by a locomotive chimney. Looking out the window, I saw that our train was rushing forward through a light, transparent cloud woven from tiny golden-blue lights. They sparkled everywhere. They circled, pierced the air with radiant arcs, cut it into different directions, crossed, sank and flared up again in the darkness of the night, falling to the ground in a fiery rain. And the train rushed further and further, shrouded in a magical veil of lights. This unforgettable spectacle lasted for five minutes, or even more. Then we escaped from the cloud of burning dust particles, leaving them far behind us.

These were myriads of fireflies, our train crashed into the midst of these inconspicuous-looking insects, gathered on a quiet, warm night, apparently in mating season own life. (A similar phenomenon can be observed not only in Mediterranean countries, but also here in Russia. If you arrive by train on a warm and not rainy evening in the second half of summer Black Sea coast, observe the extravaganza described by the author in the vicinity of Tuapse. Due to the many tunnels, the abundance of turns and the single-track track, the train does not go very fast, and the flight of fireflies is a fascinating sight. - Yu.M.)

Certain species of fireflies emit light of relatively high intensity. There are fireflies that glow so brightly that on a dark horizon from a distance you cannot immediately determine whether it is a star or a firefly in front of you. There are species in which both males and females glow equally well (for example, Italian fireflies). Finally, there are also types of beetles in which the male and female glow differently, although they look the same: in the male, the luminescent organ is better developed and acts more energetically than in the female. When the female is underdeveloped, has only rudimentary wings or no wings at all, and the male is developed normally, then something different is observed: in the female, the luminescent organs function much stronger than in the male; the more underdeveloped the female is, the more motionless and helpless she is, the brighter her luminous organ. The best example The so-called “Ivan’s worm” may serve here, which is not a worm at all, but a larva-like female of a special species of firefly beetles (Fig. 7). Many of us admired its cold, even light breaking through the foliage of bushes or grass. But there is an even more interesting sight - the glow of a female of another species of firefly. Inconspicuous during the day, resembling an annelid worm, at night it literally bathes in the rays of its own magnificent bluish-white light thanks to the abundance of luminous organs.

However, it is not enough to admire the glow of living beings. It is necessary to know what causes the glow of the inhabitants of the underwater and terrestrial world and what role it plays in the lives of animals.

Inside each nightglow, using a microscope, you can see many yellowish grains - these are luminous bacteria living in the body of the nightglow. By emitting light, they make these microscopic animals glow. The same must be said about the fish, whose eyes are like burning lanterns: their glow is caused by luminous bacteria that have settled in the cells of the luminous organ of this fish. But the glow of animals is not always associated with the activity of luminous bacteria. Sometimes the light is produced by special luminous cells of the animal itself.

The luminescent organs of different animals are built according to the same type, but some are simpler, while others are more complex. While luminous polyps, jellyfish and starfish have their entire body glowing, some breeds of crayfish have only one light source - big eyes, similar to a telescope. However, among luminous animals, one of the first places rightfully belongs to cephalopods. These include the octopus, which has the ability to change the color of its outer coverings.

What organs cause the glow? How are they built and how do they work?

The skin of the cephalopod contains small, oval-shaped hard bodies. The front part of this body, looking outward, is completely transparent and is something similar to the lens of the eye, and the rear, most of it, is wrapped in a black shell of pigment cells (Fig. 8). Directly under this shell lie silvery cells in several rows: they form the middle layer of the luminous organ of the mollusk. Beneath it are complex shaped cells that resemble the nerve elements of the retina. They line the inner surface of this body ("apparatus"). They also emit light.

So, the “light bulb” of a cephalopod consists of three different layers. Light is released by the cells of the inner layer. Reflecting from the silvery cells of the middle layer, it passes through the transparent end of the “light bulb” and goes out.

Another interesting detail in this luminous “apparatus”. In the skin of a cephalopod, next to each such body, there is something similar to a concave mirror or reflector. Each such reflector in the “light bulb” of a mollusk consists, in turn, of two kinds of cells: dark pigment cells that do not transmit light, in front of which there are rows of silvery cells that reflect light.

While the body lives, various chemical processes take place in its cells. In connection with these processes in the body arise various shapes energy: thermal, thanks to which it warms up; mechanical, on which its movements depend; electrical, which is associated with the work of his nerves. Light too special kind energy arising under the influence of that internal work which occurs in the body. The substance of luminous bacteria and those cells from which the luminous apparatuses of animals are composed, when oxidized, emits light energy.

What role does glow play in the lives of animals? It has not yet been possible to answer this question in each individual case. But there can hardly be any doubt about the benefits of glowing for many animals. Glowing fish and crayfish live at depths where sunlight does not penetrate. In the dark, it is difficult to discern what is happening around, track down prey and escape from the enemy in time. Meanwhile, luminous fish and crayfish are sighted and have eyes. The ability to glow makes their life easier.

In addition, we know how some animals are attracted to light. A fish with something like a light bulb sticking out of its head, or an anglerfish with a long, cord-like tentacle “with a flashlight” at the end, use luminous organs to attract prey. The cephalopod is even happier in this regard: its changeable, iridescent light attracts some, frightens others. Some varieties of small luminous crustaceans, in a moment of danger, emit jets of luminous substance, and the resulting luminous cloud hides them from the enemy. Finally, in some animals, glowing serves as a means of finding and attracting one sex of an animal to another: males thus find females or, conversely, attract them to themselves. Consequently, the glow of animals is one of the adaptations that are so rich in Live nature, one of the weapons in the struggle for existence.

Bioluminescence (translated from Greek “bios” - life, and Latin “lumen” - light) is the ability of living organisms to emit light. This is one of the most amazing phenomena. It is not found very often in nature. What does it look like? Let's watch:

10. Glowing plankton

Photo 10. Glowing plankton, Maldives

Glowing plankton in Lake Gippsland, Australia. This glow is nothing more than bioluminescence - chemical processes in the body of animals during which the released energy is released in the form of light. The phenomenon of bioluminescence, amazing in its nature, was lucky not only to see, but also to be photographed by photographer Phil Hart.

9. Glowing mushrooms


The photo shows Panellus stipticus. One of the few mushrooms with bioluminescence. This type of mushroom is quite common in Asia, Australia, Europe and North America. Grows in clumps on logs, stumps and trunks deciduous trees, especially on oaks, beeches and birches.

8. Scorpio


The photo shows a scorpion glowing under ultraviolet light. Scorpios do not emit their own light, but they do glow under the invisible emission of neon light. The thing is that in the exoskeleton of a scorpion there is a substance that emits its light under ultraviolet radiation.

7. Glow worms Waitomo Caves, New Zealand


In New Zealand, the Waitomo Cave is home to luminous mosquito larvae. They cover the ceiling of the cave. These larvae leave threads of glowing mucus, up to 70 per worm. This helps them catch flies and midges, which they feed on. In some species, such threads are poisonous!

6. Glowing jellyfish, Japan


Photo 6. Glowing jellyfish, Japan

An amazing sight could be seen in Toyama Bay in Japan - thousands of jellyfish washed up on the shore of the bay. Moreover, these jellyfish live at great depths, and during the breeding season they rise to the surface. At that moment they were brought to a huge number to land. Externally, this picture is very reminiscent of glowing plankton! But these are absolutely two different phenomena.

5. Glowing mushrooms (Mycena lux-coeli)


What you see here are glowing mushrooms Mycena lux-coeli. They grow in Japan, during the rainy season, on fallen Chinquapin trees. These mushrooms emit light thanks to a substance called luciferin, which oxidizes and produces this intense greenish-white glow. It's very funny that, in Latin, Lucifer means “light of the giver.” Who would have known! These mushrooms live only a few days and die when the rains stop.

4. Glow of the ostracod Cypridina hilgendorfii, Japan


Cypridina hilgendorfii is the name given to shellfish, tiny (for the most part no more than 1-2 mm), transparent organisms that live in the coastal waters and sands of Japan. They glow thanks to the substance luciferin.

An interesting fact is that during the Second World War, the Japanese collected these crustaceans in order to obtain light at night. After soaking these organisms in water, they begin to glow again.

3. Glowing fireflies


Photo 3. Long exposure photograph of fireflies

This is what firefly habitats look like, taken with a long exposure. Fireflies blink to attract the attention of the opposite sex.

2. Glowing bacteria


Glowing bacteria are an amazing natural phenomenon. Light in bacteria is created in the cytoplasm. They live mainly in sea ​​water, and less often on land. One bacterium emits a very weak, almost invisible light on its own, but when in large quantities, then they glow with a more intense, very pleasing to the eye blue light.

1. Jellyfish (Aequorea Victoria)


In the 1960s, Japanese-American scientist Osamu Shimomura at Nagoya University identified the luminescent protein aequorin from the equorea jellyfish (Aequorea victoria). Shimomura showed that aequorin initiates with calcium ions without oxygen (oxidation). In other words, the light-emitting fragment is not a separate substrate in itself, but a substrate tightly bound to the protein. This in turn made a huge contribution not only to science, but also to medicine. In 2008, Shimomura was awarded Nobel Prize for your efforts.