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In the darkest corners of the planet, where the light of the Sun never touches, eerie glows can yet be found, illuminating the shadows.throughout the history of life on Earth. Bioluminescent organisms can harness chemical reactions to produce a glow of their own, a tool used for various purposes by the different creatures that wield it.in the depths of the ocean in the Cambrian, some 540 million years ago.
Some of them are also known to glow with bioluminescence, but the reason for it is a bit of a mystery, since they only do so when they're disturbed. Scientists think that it might be a lure for prey, or for predators to come and eat the smaller fish that feed on and damage the coral. Their seafloor forays identified previously unknown bioluminescence in five octocoral types – a discovery they could use for the next step, an analysis called ancestral state reconstruction.
"The more living species with the shared trait, the higher the probability that as you move back in time that those ancestors likely had that trait as well."The team deployed several different statistical analyses, and they all returned a similar result: bioluminescence first emerged in the common ancestor of all octocorals some 540 million years ago.
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Bioluminescence may have evolved 300 million years earlier than scientists previously thoughtLaura is a science news writer, covering a wide variety of subjects, but she is particularly fascinated by all things aquatic, paleontology, nanotechnology, and exploring how science influences daily life. Laura is a proud former resident of the New Jersey shore, a competitive swimmer, and a fierce defender of the Oxford comma.
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Bioluminescence first evolved in animals at least 540 million years ago, pushing back previous oldest dated exampleBioluminescence first evolved in animals at least 540 million years ago in a group of marine invertebrates called octocorals, according to the results of a new study from scientists with the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History.
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