Bioluminescence is the production and emission of light by living organisms. It is a form of chemiluminescence. Bioluminescence occurs widely in marine vertebrates and invertebrates, as well as in some fungi, microorganisms including some bioluminescent bacteria, and terrestrial arthropods such as fireflies. In some animals, the light is bacteriogenic, produced by symbiotic bacteria such as those from the genus Vibrio; in others, it is autogenic, produced by the animals themselves.
Luciferin is a generic term for the light-emitting compound found in organisms that generate bioluminescence. Luciferins typically undergo an enzyme-catalyzed reaction with molecular oxygen. The resulting transformation, which usually involves splitting off a molecular fragment, produces an excited state intermediate that emits light upon decaying to its ground state. The term may refer to molecules that are substrates for both luciferases and photoproteins.
Sweepers are small, tropical marine perciform fish of the family Pempheridae. Found in the western Atlantic Ocean and Indo-Pacific region, the family contains about 26 species in two genera. One species is the target of subsistence fisheries in Japan, where the fish is much enjoyed for its taste. Sweepers are occasionally kept in marine aquaria.
Collared wrigglers are perciform fishes in the family Xenisthmidae. They are native to the Indian and Pacific Oceans, where they are mostly reef-dwelling.
Pseudojuloides is a genus of wrasses native to the Indian and Pacific Oceans.
Eviota is a genus of fish in the family Gobiidae, commonly as dwarfgobies found in the Indo-Pacific region, where it is distributed from Japan to Australia and from Africa to Pitcairn Island. Species are mainly associated with coral reefs. Many of these fish are short-lived, with life cycles as brief as 3.5 weeks in the tropics. Some species are hermaphrodites and some representatives live symbiotically among the tentacles of the mushroom coral.
Tomiyamichthys is a genus of gobies found from the Red Sea through the Indian Ocean to the western Pacific Ocean.
Mulloidichthys is a genus of fish in the family Mullidae native to coral and rocky reefs of the tropical Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Ocean.
Vargula hilgendorfii, sometimes called the sea-firefly and one of three bioluminescent species known in Japan as umi-hotaru (海蛍), is a species of ostracod crustacean. It is the only member of genus Vargula to inhabit Japanese waters; all other members of its genus inhabit the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean Sea, and waters off the coast of California. V. hilgendorfii was formerly more common, but its numbers have fallen significantly.
Xenisthmus is the most well-known genus in the family Xenisthmidae, which is regarded as a synonymous with the Eleotridae, a part of Gobiiformes. These small to very small fish are known as wrigglers, and live in reefs and among rubble in the Indo-Pacific.
Aseraggodes is a genus of soles native to the Indian and Pacific oceans. These small flatfishes are poisonous.
Diplogrammus is a genus of dragonets.
Cabillus is a genus of gobies native to the Indian and Pacific oceans.
Coryogalops is a genus of gobies native to the southeastern Atlantic Ocean and the western Indian Ocean along the coasts of Africa and Asia from South Africa to Pakistan.
Pempheris is a genus of sweepers native to the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Ocean.
Bioluminescent bacteria are light-producing bacteria that are predominantly present in sea water, marine sediments, the surface of decomposing fish and in the gut of marine animals. While not as common, bacterial bioluminescence is also found in terrestrial and freshwater bacteria. These bacteria may be free living or in symbiosis with animals such as the Hawaiian Bobtail squid or terrestrial nematodes. The host organisms provide these bacteria a safe home and sufficient nutrition. In exchange, the hosts use the light produced by the bacteria for camouflage, prey and/or mate attraction. Bioluminescent bacteria have evolved symbiotic relationships with other organisms in which both participants benefit close to equally. Another possible reason bacteria use luminescence reaction is for quorum sensing, an ability to regulate gene expression in response to bacterial cell density.
Pempheris vanicolensis, the Vanikoro sweeper or greenback bullseye is a species of Indo-Pacific fish from the family Pempheridae, the sweepers.
Pempheris mangula, the black-edged sweeper, Moluccan sweeper or black-margin bullseye is a species of Indo-Pacific sweeper from the family Pempheridae. The history of the identification of the Indo-Pacific sweepers is complex and this species has been identified as the "Pempheris vanicolensis" which has colonised the Mediterranean Sea from the Red Sea via the Suez Canal by Lessepsian migration but this identification is not universally accepted.
Pempheris affinis, the black-tipped bullseye, is a species of marine ray-finned fish in the family Pempheridae, the sweepers. It is from the southwestern Pacific Ocean.
A kleptoprotein is a protein which is not encoded in the genome of the organism which uses it, but instead is obtained through diet from a prey organism. Importantly, a kleptoprotein must maintain its function and be mostly or entirely undigested, drawing a distinction from proteins that are digested for nutrition, which become destroyed and non-functional in the process.
