31 March 2012

Bioluminescent firefly squid


Very cool photo, and a fitting final image for the top of the blog today.   There's a little information about these creatures in Wikipedia, and a post about them in Atlas Obscura.

Via Reddit.  I've tried without success to track back to the photographer for credit, but most "similar image" searches wind up in Japanese tumblrs that I can't decipher.

See also the incredible image of a shoreline in Australia glowing with bioluminescent algae.

5 comments:

  1. Sandy Sandy ArtMarch 31, 2012 at 12:57 PM

    Magical!

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  2. DanielMarch 31, 2012 at 7:36 PM

    Uh...definitely not firefly squid...some kind of jellyfish...you can see the bell of the jellyfish and the long tentacles...

    But very cool anyway!

    ReplyDelete
  3. bunnitsApril 1, 2012 at 10:24 PM

    Amazing.

    I'm always looking for phosphorescence or bioluminesence during night walks at the beach. Seeing something like this would be outstanding.

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  4. AnonymousApril 2, 2012 at 1:49 AM

    Dave here.

    They are Firefly Squid in Toyama Bay Japan.
    More info:
    http://tolweb.org/Watasenia_scintillans/19645

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    Replies
    1. MinnesotastanApril 2, 2012 at 8:00 AM

      Thanks, Dave. With those key words I was able to find additional photos here -

      http://www.amusingplanet.com/2012/03/firefly-squids-in-toyama-bay-japan.html

      But I have to agree with Daniel that the tentacles in the embedded photo appear to be too long to be those of squid, and look more like some type of bioluminescent jelly.

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