A ‘disco squid’ that changes colour and glows in the dark ensures that life below the ocean waves is never dull.
The Caribbean reef squid’s incredible technicolour display was caught on camera as it hunted for food at night.
The
12-inch (30cm) cephalopod was snapped searching for prey in the
shadows, before rapidly swimming away with its catch while flashing
different colours.
The 12-inch (30 cm) Carribean reef
squid (pictured) was snapped searching for prey in the shadows, before
rapidly swimming away with its catch while flashing different colours
Photographer
Masa Ushioda, 43, encountered the rainbow-coloured creature 50ft
(15metres) underwater during a dive at the City of Washington Wreck off
Florida Keys in the US.
Mr
Ushioda, who lives in Hawaii, said: ‘I found this squid hunting for
prey and it started targeting some zoo plankton off my dive lights.
The squid uses chromatophores in its skin to rapidly change colour
‘When they are hunting, they get excited and display the most brilliant colours using the special chromatophores in their skin.
‘As soon as it had snatched a couple of planktons, it jetted away with excitement.’
Caribbean reef squid are known to communicate by changing their colour, shape and texture.
They
can do this by the nervous control of chromatophores, which are
pigment-containing and light-reflecting organelles in cells found in a
wide range of animals.
The
creatures use their transformative power to stay concealed from
predators, become large in the face of danger and flash different
colours to find a mate.
Incredibly,
they can change colour on one side of their body to give another squid a
message on their right, while adopting different colours on the rest f
their body.
Mr Ushioda said: ‘I'm happy with how the squid came out with colours because sometimes it is difficult to capture them.
‘The
key is to deliberately underexpose the photo muting the strobe light,
and then brighten the picture later to bring out its natural colours.’
CLAMS CREATE STROBE LIGHT EFFECTS THANKS TO LIP 'MIRROR BALLS'
‘Disco clams’ were recently caught on camera 'partying' on the ocean floor while producing their own strobe light effects.
And
now one scientist, who first came across the entertaining mollusc four
years ago, has discovered the secret of how it lights up.
Ctenoides
ales, dubbed disco clams because of this unique feature, produce the
effect using its lips - which is packed with tiny spheres of reflective
silica - like a mirror ball.
Lindsey Dougherty encountered the two-inch clam in 2010 while diving with her mother and sister in Wakatobi, Indonesia.
She
saw Ctenoides ales roll the edge of its mantle - a layer of muscle and
tissue that acts like a cloak over the mollusc's body - and produce a
strobe-light effect using its mirrored lips.
She
found that the flashing was not a form of bioluminescence, which is a
chemical reaction inside animals like plankton that produces light
similar to that of a glow stick.
Instead, she found, the edge of the clam's mantle lip is highly reflective on one side.
When
the clam unfurls its lip - typically twice a second - the
millimetre-wide mirror is revealed and reflects the ambient light, like a
disco ball.
The
inside of the clam's lip is packed with tiny spheres of silica, only
340 nanometers in diameter, that are ideal reflectors, particularly of
the blue light that penetrates deeper into seawater compared to red
light.
The
outside of the lip contains no silica nanospheres, so when the lip is
furled, no light is reflected, according to the study, published in the
British Journal of the Royal Society Interface.
By repeatedly unfurling and furling the lip, the clam produces a continual rippling light show.
The
non-reflective back of the lip strongly absorbs blue light, so it
appears dark and makes the contrast between the sides even more
striking.
‘Disco clams’ were caught on camera 'partying' on the ocean floor while producing their own strobe light effects
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