This Fish Spits Light

September 7, 2014 5:54 PM

This Fish Spits Light
posted by dhruva (17 comments total)

Not trippy at all!
posted by vrakatar at 6:06 PM on September 7, 2014

The awesome thing about this is not the fish. The fish is a side effect. The awesome thing about this is that there is a shrimp (the ostracod) that uses the lux genes (the same system that makes jellyfish and fireflies glow) for defense. That is so neat.

I love molecular biology.
posted by maryr at 6:14 PM on September 7, 2014 [5 favorites]

BTW, I saw this the other day via 5 Interesting Things linking this blog post from a Tumblr called Fuck Yeah, Fluid Dynamics, which is a pretty great Tumblr name. They also recently posted this cool study of coral cilia.
posted by maryr at 6:19 PM on September 7, 2014 [1 favorite]

Here's the whole clip (thanks to martyr's link).
posted by dhruva at 6:38 PM on September 7, 2014 [1 favorite]

Sure, but does it kill fascists?
posted by uosuaq at 7:20 PM on September 7, 2014 [5 favorites]

"I never thought watching fish vomit could be so much fun!"
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 7:24 PM on September 7, 2014 [2 favorites]

Not wanting to be eaten, the cardinalfish immediately spits out the ostracod, resulting in little underwater fish fireworks.

This seems like awfully long term planning for fish. I'm guessing they taste bad to the fish, and the light is a secondary defense against the fish with a mutation that's okay with ostracod. Easy test: cook up a batch of ostracod with the lux gene splced out and put them in environs with predators if they die out, we have the answer.
posted by pwnguin at 8:39 PM on September 7, 2014 [1 favorite]

Plan what? I think if you put something into your mouth that turns your skull into a 9,000 watt lamp, you'd probably spit it out. Unless you would prefer searing light blazing through your transparent flesh and upon your raw ocular nerves.
posted by P.o.B. at 9:04 PM on September 7, 2014 [1 favorite]

Having a translucent body I think it'd be pretty easy for the fish to tell when his stomach is full of light emitting shrimp.
posted by scalefree at 9:56 PM on September 7, 2014 [1 favorite]

On the Discovery Channel years ago I saw some episode about deep sea life (it wasn't the Planet Earth episode, I don't think) about some little creature that had, essentially, chemical depth charges. It shot out some kind of substance and then, a few seconds later, it would explode in light. The theory is that it would shoot this light out away from its body as a way to distract predators and give them something else to go after. Wish I could find the thing again.
posted by curious nu at 10:20 PM on September 7, 2014

Having a translucent body I think it'd be pretty easy for the fish to tell when his stomach is full of light emitting shrimp.

I'm not sure about this - the fish doesn't look very bright.
posted by Dr Dracator at 11:53 PM on September 7, 2014 [4 favorites]

The fish looks plenty bright to me.
posted by rouftop at 12:14 AM on September 8, 2014 [3 favorites]

Brilliant fish. By far the brightest of the five.
posted by five fresh fish at 12:40 AM on September 8, 2014 [1 favorite]

I think he's quite dim. Well, now he is.
posted by taff at 4:45 AM on September 8, 2014 [1 favorite]

Unless you would prefer searing light blazing through your transparent flesh and upon your raw ocular nerves.

Man. Where do I sign?
posted by Devonian at 6:29 AM on September 8, 2014

Unless you would prefer searing light blazing through your transparent flesh and upon your raw ocular nerves.

That's called the Castaneda affect, or Carlos, for short. It takes three buttons, and about 20 minutes to kick in.
posted by mule98J at 10:30 AM on September 8, 2014 [2 favorites]

I thought this was initially talking about the sonoluminescence effect of mantis shrimp.
posted by FatherDagon at 2:38 PM on September 8, 2014 [1 favorite]