Using genetic discoveries based on modern bioluminescent organisms, scientists have estimated coral bioluminescence to have originated in the Cambrian period, about 540 million years ago. This ...

A new study resets the timing for the emergence of bioluminescence back to millions of years earlier than previously thought.

The splendid deep-sea coral Iridogorgia sp. Deep-sea octocorals that are known to be bioluminescent. Credit: NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration and Research. Bioluminescence first evolved in animals at ...

Using genetic discoveries based on modern bioluminescent organisms, Japanese scientists have estimated coral bioluminescence to have originated in the Cambrian period, about 540 million years ago ...

Deepwater coral specialist Andrea Quattrini’s new paper pins the origin of bioluminescence in corals to more than 500 million years ago ...

Bioluminescence first piqued our curiosity during a 2014 research cruise on the R/V Celtic Explorer over the Whittard Canyon off the southwest coast of Ireland. We were taking a tissue sample of a ...

The Dinoflagellates of Pandora For bioluminescence on Pandora, the team used Earth’s dinoflagellates as the foundation. Dinoflagellates are single-celled organisms in coral reefs, and create ...

Hundreds of plants, fungi, and animals can do it. Now scientists think bioluminescence may have evolved 540 million years ago in Earth’s ancient oceans.

This image provided by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in April 2024 shows bioluminescence in the sea whip coral Funiculina sp. observed under red light in a laboratory. (© 2020 ...

You know those little glow-in-the-dark stars that dot the ceilings of children’s rooms? Yeah, I didn’t have stars. Instead, I had little glowing dolphins, starfish, and sharks “swimming” on my ceiling ...

A deep-sea bioluminescent octocoral of the genus Iridogorgia (left). A bioluminescent keratoisidid bamboo coral found in the deep ocean off the coast of Hawaii (right).

The colonial false gold coral Savalia sp. displaying bioluminescence in the Bahamas in 2009. Sönke Johnsen Metallogorgia melanotrichos coral, a deep-sea octocoral known to be bioluminescent.