Coral identified as oldest bioluminescent organism, suggesting a new model of ancient ecology. ScienceDaily . Retrieved June 2, 2025 from www.sciencedaily.com / releases / 2024 / 04 / 240424111704.htm ...

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.

Iridogorgia, a genus of deep-sea bioluminescent coral. Credit... NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration and Research, Deepwater Wonders of Wake. By Sam Jones. April 23, 2024.

In 2014, I started testing various coral species for bioluminescence, and since then I’ve been compiling a list. So now, every time I go out to sea, I test various corals for this trait.

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 ...

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 ...

They are a diverse and ancient group of animals that includes some 3,500 species, many of which are bioluminescent. The colonial false gold coral Savalia displaying bioluminescence in the Caribbean in ...

A bioluminescent keratoisidid bamboo coral found in the deep ocean off the coast of Hawaii (right). NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration and Research.

Bioluminescence is the ability of living things to produce light via chemical reactions. Until now, the earliest dated origin of the phenomenon was thought to be around 267 million years ago in ...

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.

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 ...