The skin of the deep-sea fishes contains one layer filled with small organelles called melanosomes that contain melanin, and in these fishes the melanosomes are both larger and more abundant than in other animals, with very few gaps resulting in a solid layer of pigment. The ultra-black coloration of these deep-sea fishes is due to a pigment called melanin, the same pigment that gives human skin its coloration, and the reason the skin of these fishes is so much darker than human skin is due to both the amount of melanin present and arrangement of the melanin. In some cases, ultra-black skin might also serve to block light that the fish does not want to emit, with ultra-black skin over the gut potentially blocking light emitted by bioluminescent prey while being digested. While most of these species likely use this coloration as camouflage to hide from predators, some of them, including fish that attract prey using bioluminescent lures like Astronesthes micropogon and Oneirodes sp., could potentially use ultra-black skin to catch prey unawares and prevent them from being seen in the light from their own lures. This ultra-black skin may serve several purposes depending on the biology, preferred food sources, and predators of each species. The specimen with the darkest skin, an anglerfish belonging to the genus Oneirodes, also tied some species of birds-of-paradise as having the darkest pigment in any animal, reflecting only 0.044% of the light that hit it. A total of 16 out of the 18 species caught in these trawls were found to have skin that reflected less than 0.5% of the light that hit it and that could thus be termed ultra-black. The first recorded instance of ultra-black coloration being discovered in a species of fish occurred in 2020, when a group of researchers were examining fishes caught in trawls during research cruises in Monterey Bay, California, and the Gulf of Mexico. This color is part of the natural coloration of some species of birds-of-paradise, butterflies, and fishes, and ultra-black components are used in telescopes, cameras, and solar panels to improve the efficiency of light capture. An ultra-black substance is defined as reflecting less than 0.5% of the light that hits its surface. Ultra-black is one of the darkest shades of the color black.
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