Dwarf lantern shark coloring page12/27/2023 ![]() ![]() ![]() Lantern sharks use melatonin to trigger a constant belly glow used in camouflage. In lantern sharks, prolactin triggers 30-minute-long bursts of light, which the sharks likely use for various means of communication. When the team added the hormone prolactin to the samples, the glow faded. Sure enough, melatonin caused the shark's skin to glow neurotransmitters known to regulate light production in deep-sea bony fish had no effect on the pygmy's skin. In the lab, the scientists took skin samples from the sharks and tested how they responded to various chemicals known to trigger biological processes such as light production. The new research, detailed this week in The Journal of Experimental Biology, suggests their glowing bellies (a type of bioluminescence) would replace the downwelling light from the sun, or the moon and stars, that is otherwise absorbed by their bodies.įor the study, Claes and his colleague Jerome Mallefet, along with Hsuan-Ching Ho from the National Dong Hwa University, Taiwan, captured 27 adult, smalleye pygmy sharks off the coast of Taiwan and brought them to the National Museum of Marine Biology and Aquarium. The small shark, which reaches a maximum length of just 8.7 inches (22 centimeters), lives well below the water surface in the Indian and western Pacific Oceans. ![]()
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