Bioluminescent Animals That Glow in the Dark

Real animals, and the plankton that lights up beaches, that make their own light through a chemical reaction in their bodies. The test for a place here is true bioluminescence: creatures that only glow under an ultraviolet lamp, such as scorpions and biofluorescent sharks, are left out, and so are glowing fungi. Where a good photo of the glow exists it is shown; where the light is too faint or too deep to photograph well, the photo shows the animal and the caption explains where its lights are. The gallery starts on land, moves to the coast, then sinks into the open ocean and the deep sea, and each caption says what the light is for where scientists know.