If you get to New York this year, don’t miss the Natural History museum exhibit, Creatures of Light. A fantastic collection of modeled creatures showing bioluminescence; that is they light up like in Avatar.
What’s remarkable is the wide range of reasons why creatures light up. This Science article explains a few:
- An octopus’s suckers evolved into light organs, apparently to lure prey
- A jellyfish lights up blue, under attack–to lure predators to its attacker
- A fish eye fluoresces green and focuses the fluorescence onto its retina, for more sensitive detection
- Another jellyfish lights up as camouflage, to appear from below as the same brightness as light from above
Other interesting examples?
Joan Slonczewski 
One response to “Creatures of Light”
Joan, the older I get the more I see Arthur C. Clarke’s point, about our space exploration being a bit of cart-before-the-horse, since we haven’t really studied two-thirds of our own planet yet. So many sci-fi things in the deep–creatures that aren’t carbon-based, pressures that would crush a person, more total protection required the farther in one ventures… it’s just downward-facing-space (for yoga folks-haha). Great recommendation, thanks.