does the fishing planet albatross kayak glow in the dark

And it's the discovery of the pattern.ĬORNISH: The work appears in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science.

MALLEFET: It's not the discovery of a new species, but it's showing that it's really luminous. At nearly six feet long, it's the largest glow-in-the-dark vertebrate known to science. Mallefet was determined to add to that list.ĬORNISH: So he hitched a ride on a fishing boat to study sharks accidentally pulled up in its nets, and he was able to document for the first time the glow of the kitefin shark. Scientists estimated that about five dozen of the world's more than 500 shark species glowed, but only a handful had been confirmed. KELLY: Glowing sharks were first documented back in the 19th century. MALLEFET: Sharks are the MacGyvers of bioluminescence use.ĬORNISH: They use it to warn predators or to recognize their kind or to camouflage their silhouettes against the faint blue glow of the ocean's surface. He says sharks light up for all sorts of reasons. You see, Mallefet studies bioluminescence, the ability of living organisms to create their own light. What he saw was a shark glowing in the dark. To see it, I was just like a kid in front of a Christmas tree. JEROME MALLEFET: I went into the dark, and I said, gosh, it's glowing like hell. Then, just as he was packing up, he stepped into his laboratory aboard the boat one last time. For a month, he had worked 12-hour shifts seven days a week on a boat off the coast of New Zealand. Jerome Mallefet was about to call it quits.

Does the fishing planet albatross kayak glow in the dark