Here an astonishing array of beings can make light. The light may lure insects that spread mushroom spores.īut the real light show takes place in the sea. More than 90 species of fungi glow in the dark, including these Brazilian “coconut flower” mushrooms (Neonothopanus gardneri). But there are other luminous landlubbers, including glowworms, a snail, some millipedes, and-you are not hallucinating-certain mushrooms. On land the most familiar examples are fireflies, flashing to attract mates on a warm summer night. Commonplace, because many life-forms can do it. Magical, because of its glimmering, captivating beauty. The ability to make light-bioluminescence-is both commonplace and magical. For this particular ctenophore lives far below the surface of the sea, and few humans have ever seen its kind, let alone its light. An image made of bluish light that swirls and gradually dissipates, as if the animal itself has just dissolved. For a moment, a ghostly image of the ctenophore appears in the dish. We all lean forward, jostling each other to see. Steven Haddock, one of the world experts on life-forms that make light, is about to nudge the animal with a glass stick. About two inches long, it looks like a gelatinous, transparent bell, with ridges down its sides. It’s a sea creature known as a ctenophore (the c is silent). On a table, in a small dish, is a newly captured animal. The light is off, the air is warm and stuffy, and-as we’re at sea, 50 miles off the coast of California-the floor keeps rocking. The room is tiny, and several of us are crammed inside. It’s 10 p.m., and I’m standing in the darkroom of the Western Flyer, a research vessel belonging to the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute. ![]() This story appears in the March 2015 issue of National Geographic magazine.
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