Natures wonders: hiding in dark waters (Introduction)

by David Turell , Sunday, July 19, 2020, 20:15 (1376 days ago) @ David Turell

And also a very black fish hiding in dark waters:

https://futurism.com/scientists-discover-vantablack-creatures?mc_cid=09e716c10b&mc_...

"A team of marine biologists have discovered 16 new species of terrifying deep-sea fish that reflect almost no light at all, much like the ultra-black material Vantablack.

"Marine biologist Karen Osborn was astonished when she attempted to take pictures of a fangtooth, a terrifying fanged monster of the deep sea, for cataloguing reasons. The fish appeared to absorb almost all of the light her underwater studio shone at it, leaving only eerie silhouettes.

***

"Some of the newly discovered species are so dark that they absorb 99.956 percent of light that hits it. For context, last year MIT engineers claimed they accidentally created the darkest material that absorbs 99.995 percent of incoming light — 10 times darker than Vantablack, an extremely dark and difficult to produce carbon nanotube material designed by British nanotech company Surrey Nanosystems.

***

"So how do these fish get so dark? Special layers of melanosomes, tiny cellular structures stuffed with melanin — the same natural pigment that colors human skin — scatter incoming photons and stop them from finding their way back out.

"One species, the threadfin dragonfish, was even found to only be ultra-black when its young — likely a defense mechanism to protect it when it needs to hide from predators.

"Other species had melanosomes lining their guts to make sure any bioluminescent fish they ate won’t give away their position. “You don’t want to be swimming around with a glowing belly, right?” Osborne told Wired. “That’s just asking for trouble.'”

Comment: Not by trial and error. Requires design especially if sixteen different species developed it by so-called convergence. That means it was built into the DNA programming.