Red may be seen underwater

[DWhatley]

It seems that cephs are not the only ones who may use light as a communications method. The month's Practical Fish Keeping has an article (http://www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/pfk/pages/item.php?news=1805) that reports potential use of red light by fish to communicate.

[Neogonodactylus]

This is not that surprising. Many organisms fluoresce in the red. There are several stomatopods that live below 30 m that flouresce in the red as do many coralline algae, sponges, and corals.

Roy

[DWhatley]

Roy,
Does that mean that fish "not seeing red" is now an old theory and no longer considered true or is it that red is still a unique color to the underwater spectrum but that numerous fish/inverts utilize its absence to communicate?

[Neogonodactylus]

It depends on the fish. My colleague, Justin Marshall, knows a lot more about vision in fish than I do. You might enjoy his website at:

http://ilc00f.facbacs.uq.edu.au/VTHRC/ecovis/index.html

Roy

[monty]

This is my favorite paper from the "blue is the norm, red is the exception" camp:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15366767

Unfortunately, that's just the abstract. I am a believer that fair use allows redistribution of the PDF for nonprofit educational purposes, however. :read:

[#30Girl]

That's cool!