Wow, you’re glowing!

Imagine being able to light yourself up, it would certainly make you easier to find in a crowd! Well the following animals have evolved to be bioluminescent! The light is created through the organism through some nifty chemical reactions.

This evolution allows for better communication, camouflage and, of course, finding prey. It’s estimated that over 70% of ocean animals are bioluminescent. This includes jellyfish, sharks and lots of different species of fish. Nature’s own light show!

Let’s take a look at some of our favourites!

Angling for some prey

This rather terrifying looking specimen is the anglerfish. Most anglerfish live in the depths of the deep sea. Popping out of the top of the head is their lure. It lights up and like the bait on a fishing line, attracts prey to be gobbled up!

An energy efficient light bulb

This brightly coloured fella is a firefly. Their lights are incredibly efficient as 100% of the energy created is emitted through the light. Compare that to an incandescent bulb only emitting 10% of its energy as light.

Avoid using this to style your hair

Say hello to the comb jelly! It may look like one, but the comb jelly isn’t actually a jellyfish! Not technically bioluminescent (as this can only be seen in the dark), light reflects off the ‘combs’ on their tentacles and creates a rainbow of colours.

Shine bright if you’re hungry!

Glowworms are actually a flying insect and only glow in their larval stage. You’re basically looking at shiny maggots! The hungrier the glowworm, the brighter its shine. To catch food, glowworms create up to 70 long lines of sticky mucus to catch small insects.

Foxfire; what a fun-guy!

There are more than 70 species of bioluminescent mushrooms. The glow from mushrooms is called foxfire and it may be that the light attracts insects. This allows the mushrooms to reproduce and grow!