Bioluminescence | Life under Light
Bio-luminescence is the production and emission of light by a living organism.
Humans can't see in dark, i always i could do that some day. Nevertheless animals like owls, aye-aye and other nocturnal animals can see crystal clearly at night time also. But night is not complete darkness. Their retina is just more sensitive to photons. Some animals really don't need light to see they have their own. This is called called "Bio-luminescence". There many ways that evolution has come up to achieve this ( three types ; 'discovered ' )
- Fluorescence :- In this process, atoms absorb energy raising their electrons to their excited state which unstable decays soon and emits Electro-Magnetic Radiation (EMR) of visible spectrum or in simpler words the atoms absorb energy around and release into simpler smaller units of energy and more numerous than starting, like absorbing UV-light and emitting it as visible light of different frequency and energy.
Scorpion |
- Phosphorescence :- Is a chemical reaction that is triggered by calcium-ions , in the presence of luciferase luciferin reacts with oxygen producing/evolving light. This reaction doesn't produce heat.
Pryosoma Sea pen - Chemiluminescence :- Is very similar to Fluorescence just except for that fact that energy that energizes/excites atoms is produced by the organism itself rather surroundings like in fluorescence.
Fireflies |
Advantages of Bio-luminescence are
- To Warn/Evade predators.
- To lure in or sometimes see prey
- For communication between individuals of the same species
Bio-luminescence is mostly found in the marine creatures, where at depth no light can penetrate. Bio-luminescence according to recent discoveries has been evolved separately in the tree of evolution at least 8 times in just fish !!
So that's all about types of Bio-luminescence, What about Symbiotic bio - luminescence ?
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