Monday, November 24, 2008

Plankton Storm Maldives




We swam through some luminous plankton in our descent. It is not uncommon to see such sights. I've witnessed this before in Dayang, Sipadan (over a thousand miles away from the Maldives).

I thought I'd tried and take a photo of the critters with my point and shoot Fuji camera. Its a bit hit and miss really. You activate the macro, focus, shoot. I was just looking at the object in a general way, not aiming it precisely. One in a million shot.

The plankton blink red and blue like Christmas tree lights. Very pretty! Apparently its a defensive measure designed to scare off predators and to attract bigger fish who will in turn eat the plankton eaters.

My friend Jeremy emailed me and said:
Actually, there are at least two species in your photo.
The main critter (looks like a lobster without claws/legs) is a planktonic crustacean.
It's covered in light-bearing (bioluminescent) orgnisms, most likely dinoflagellates by your description of the colours etc. These are carnivorous single-celled critters that hunt food with tentacles. Some species are bioluminescent as a predator defence mechanism...

Excerpt from: http://jrscience.wcp.muohio.edu/FieldCourses00/PapersMarineEcologyArticles/WhatsGlowingintheWaterBio.html



"...Bioluminescence is used to evade predators and acts as a type of burglar alarm defense mechanism in dinoflagellates. Dinoflagelletes produce light when the deformation of the cell by minute forces triggers its luminescence. When the cell is disturbed by a predator, it will give a light flash lasting 0.1 to 0.5 seconds. The flash is meant to attract a secondary predator that will be more likely to attack the predator that is trying to consume the dinoflagellate. The light flash also makes the predator jump and worry about other predators attacking it, making the predator less likely to prey on the dinoflagellate...."

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