Glowing Anemone

Anemone was discovered by Jörg Wiedenmann of the National Oceanography Centre of the University of Southampton in the UK and his equals on a mission to the floor of the Gulf of Mexico, 500 to 600 meters down. The fish is glowing with stripes tentacles of the fluorescent anemone come out out of the darkness and there was nothing mainly special about that, apart from that this species, which may by no means have been seen before, is one of just a handful of organisms whose fluorescence can be switched on and off.

The anemone may perhaps be a species that is new to science, as the researchers have not been able to make out it up till now. Although it is possible that the anemones use their fluorescence to attract prey, Wiedenmann points out that it might not have any evolutionary purpose. Wiedenmann and his colleagues have now secluded the protein that makes the anemones glow, which they have named cerFP505. It has one particularly unusual characteristic: it can be switched on and off by shining a light of a certain wavelength onto it.