Tuesday, May 15, 2018

Glass eels glow green under a UV light

https://www.facebook.com/groups/EelTown/permalink/1834161836887979/
Did you know glass eels glow green under a UV light and are apparently the only freshwater fish to do so? Has anyone seen this firsthand? Any ideas on why this occurs?

All I can speculate is that is that perhaps eels (at least at the elver stage) are able to see in the UV spectrum and can use this as a kind of signaling, e.g. one fish finds a passage upstream and the others follow. Anyone know if any predators are also able to see in the UV spectrum? If so this would appear to present some disadvantages too.

Photo is from an Anguilla japonica, H/T to Jessica Reynolds for telling me American eel do this too!

https://www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/news2013/First%20naturally%20fluorescent%20fish%20discovered!

P.S. You have to copy and paste the link because Facebook doesn't like the exclamation mark at the end...

Edit: I think this may be the original research: https://www.cell.com/cell/abstract/S0092-8674(13)00644-2

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