Steven Haddock

Both of us have been on many scuba dives in the open sea. Doing so requires training, followed by medical exams and piles of forms, and involves a lot of work, planning, and money. A big ship is needed to get out to sea, and then a small boat to travel a further couple of kilometers to dive safely. When we are finally beneath the surface, at first all we see is water. After a few minutes, if we’re lucky, we start to notice faint objects slowly moving by.

1Yale University, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, 165 Prospect Street, New Haven, CT 06511, USA 2University of Guam, Marine Laboratory, 303 University Drive, Mangilao 96923, Guam 3Yale University, Yale Peabody Museum, 170 Whitney Avenue, New Haven, CT 06511, USA 4Tassal, Animal Welfare and Genetics, 1 Franklin Wharf, Hobart, TAS 7000, Australia 5Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC), Instituto de Ciencias Marinas de Andalucía (ICMAN), Campus Universitario Río...

Bioluminescence is a fascinating phenomenon in which visible light is emitted from living organisms. It has been documented in over 16 phyla and 900 genera of metazoans with the majority of observations occurring in marine environments [1,2], where it is commonly used to locate or lure food, attract mates and/or evade predation [3,4], contributing to an organism's overall fitness.