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June 12, 2009

Friday Squid Blogging: Squid Also See Through Non-Eye Organ

Weird:

The UW-Madison researchers have been intrigued by the light organ's "counterillumination" ability -- this capacity to give off light to make squids as bright as the ocean surface above them, so that predators below can't see them.

"Until now, scientists thought that illuminating tissues in the light organ functioned exclusively for the control of the intensity and direction of light output from the organ, with no role in light perception," says McFall-Ngai. "Now we show that the E. scolopes squid has additional light-detecting tissue that is an integral component of the light organ."

The researchers demonstrated that the squid light organ has the molecular machinery to respond to light cues. Molecular analysis showed that genes that produce key visual proteins are expressed in light-organ tissues, including genes similar to those that occur in the retina. They also showed that, as in the retina, these visual proteins respond to light, producing a physiological response.

"We found that the light organ in the squid is capable of sensing light as well as emitting and controlling the intensity of luminescence," says co-author Nansi Jo Colley, SMPH professor of ophthalmology and visual sciences and of genetics.

Posted on June 12, 2009 at 6:46 PM • 7 Comments

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