Spookfish Uses Mirrors For Eyes

Kligat writes "The brownsnout spookfish in the Pacific is the first known vertebrate to use mirrors to focus light into its eyes. Despite being a species known for 120 years, this was not known until a live specimen was caught between New Zealand and Samoa last year. The fish lives over 1,000 meters below the ocean's surface, so the light focused by the mirrors' perfectly curved surfaces provides a major advantage over other fish."

That's Spooky!

[Arancaytar]

(Sorry.)

Re:

[artson]

According to the article, "The mirror uses tiny plates, probably of guanine crystals, arranged into a multi-layer stack. "

Not sure why there should be any doubt what the mirrors are made of. Maybe they can't determine the makeup of the mirror from dead specimens.

Re:That's Spooky!

[Anonymous Coward]

According to the article, "The mirror uses tiny plates, probably of guanine crystals, arranged into a multi-layer stack."

I know the British spell things differently than us, but there wasn't an 'a' in 'genuine' last time I checked.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope [wikipedia.org].

Re:

[telchine]

Nope [wikipedia.org].

whooosh!

Re:

[Adriax]

The North Atlantic Flying Cluefish, a cousin of the more common flying fish.

Re:

[randyest]

Why would that be, unless the mirrors are made of some radioactive material that somehow doesn't decay until the fish is dead? Since, of course, they are almost certainly not made of such a fanciful material, I can only assume that the researchers have not yet managed to get a mirror sample into a gas chromatographer / mass spectrometer yet. Which is a shame.

Re:That's Spooky!

[mr_mischief]

There's an old saying that fish rot from the head first. Perhaps no dead specimens have been found with the eyes intact, and they've not yet cut the live specimen up to test the eyes.

Re:

[Qzukk]

There's an old saying that fish rot from the head first

This is probably the real reason. Lots of organic stuff decays on contact with air, probably by the time anyone takes a good look at the fish's eyes, they've already turned black.

Re:

[samurphy21]

I suspect that any fish meant to live 1000m deep would undergo explosive decompression on being brought to the surface, eyeballs first.

Re:

[clone53421]

Dissolved oxygen...

Re:

[samurphy21]

The fluidic pressure inside the fish would have to equal the water pressure outside the fish. The eyeballs would burst.

Also, as stated above, the gasses dissolved in the bodily fluids of the fish would precipitate out, if brought to the surface, causing bubbles in the eyes, which would eventually burst.

Divers who come back up too fast don't have decompression sickness from their lungs, its the extra gas dissolved in their blood at depth that does it.

Re:

[clone53421]

Fluids are nearly incompressible. The expansion would be very slight, and probably not enough to burst anything. Dissolved gases, however, would be a different story.

Re:

[ComaVN]

bring it to the 1 atm in a typical spectrometer and it will explode

I call bullshit. Deep sea fish don't have any air/gasses in them, and water doesn't compress.

Re:

[sykes1024]

Maybe they have nothing that is in its gaseous form at the bottom of the ocean, but bring it up to the surface and it may turn into gas without all that pressure. And lets not forget, just because something is made of mostly water doesn't mean water is the ONLY thing it's made of. And the entire fish doesn't have to explode to make studying the eye difficult, just enough cellular damage in the eyes has to occur.

Re:

[khellendros1984]

I think they probably have dissolved gasses in their bloodstreams, just like anything else. That's what gills are for: capturing dissolved oxygen from the water.

Re:

[sumdumass]

Dissolved gasses from life as well as decay in death.

However, I'm not sure that the buoyancy of the fish will change faster then the gases can normally and naturally escape. Perhaps it will, I know downing victims are bloated when surfacing but I think they are under water too. It will eventually float but at a slow pace and wouldn't likely explode or anything. Dead organic material don't usually just rise to the surface if it held a neutral buoyancy excepts when decay adds buoyancy whit gases but it is a g

More importantly

[Anonymous Coward]

How does it taste?

Re:

[Philip K Dickhead]

Probably...

like chicken.

Re:

[Yvan256]

No! No chickens in the sea! Chickens on the land, fishes in the sea! /Seinfeld

Re:

[Philip K Dickhead]

Sorry, Charlie!

StarKist wants tuna that tastes good, not tunas with good taste.

Re:

[Chuck Chunder]

Jessica Simpson was funnier.
Not to mention better in shorty shorts.

Re:

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

How does it taste?

Come on! We're mostly Anglophone's here. What we really want to know is:

How does it taste deep fried?

Re:

[NightRain]

You say Anglophone but you really mean American...

Deep-fried Mars bars, anyone?

[pjt33]

I didn't think anyone deep-fried more food than Scots.

Re:

[linzeal]

American Indian reservations.

Re:

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

I thought American at first, then I remembered what fish and chips was and where the dish came from.

Re:

[NightRain]

Alright, you've got a point, I'll grant you that :)

How does it taste?

[Petersko]

If I eat two pieces in a single bite it gives me a headache. I feel like I taste it over and over and over and over...

Lenses?

[tsa]

If it uses mirrors to focus light in its eyes it doesn't need lenses. And the use of mirrors means no chromatic abberation, which means a sharper image! What a smart 'design.' The things Nature comes up with never cease to amaze me.

Re:

[tsa]

Yeah, Nature is smart isn't she? ;)

Re:

[SQLGuru]

And the use of mirrors means no chromatic abberation, which means a sharper image!

I'm sorry. Sharper Image is bankrupt. Your gift card is worthless.

Irreducible complexity

[im_thatoneguy]

Maybe *this* eye will be irreducibly complex...

Re:

[jbezorg]

Off topic.. jeeze.

Did anybody notice the emphasis on "this"? On yet another version of a biological system that is suppose to be irreducibly complex?

Irreducible Complexity is Easy

[Petersko]

In order to determine something to be irreducibly complex, all one has to do is find an evaluator with absolutely no analytical ability or imagination.

Thankfully, those people are everywhere.

Re:

[Artifakt]

As somebody with coke bottle lens glasses, I've always wondered why anyone would think eyes make a good example of irreducible complexity in the first place. Obviously, not all eyes are perfect, and even an imperfect eye is better than none (although I'm sure I'd be in a leopard's belly by now if I was a proto-human).
Still, even a very basic eye-spot is of some use and might help an organism survive. Unless the argument is that the critter has to have at least a single eye-spot, a very basic optic nerve, an

Sexual repdroduction is easily reduceable

[brunes69]

Sexuality is not irreducible at all. You have this small couple-cell organism that reproduces asexually by division and cloning its minute DNA. This goes on for millenia, so that in any given hospitable location these organisms are incredibly densely packed, as in, in constant contact.

Then sometime, there is a mutation during the cloning process of two of the microbes whereby instead of an exact copy of each being made, potions of their DNA is instead swapped, because they are trying to reproduce adjacently

Site is down

[Yvan256]

Any Spookfish got a mirror?

Re:

[BobSixtyFour]

It's down because it's having a BROWNsnOUT.

Dopefish

[mfh]

The Dopefish [wikipedia.org] uses complex pot-philosophy for inner-vision.

nice basis

[gEvil (beta)]

Sounds like the basis for a scary story.
"As he looked into the spookfish's eye, he saw...himself."

Of course...

[SirLurksAlot]

This evolutionary development is in response to the Spookfish's natural enemy, the Medusa!

So, what's the current count of times eyes evolved

[jafiwam]

I just stumbled around trying to find a catalog of the number of types and design details of the number of times eyes have evolved.

Wiki has it at 6. Is this 7?

Re:So, what's the current count of times eyes evol

[Skadet]

And the corresponding link to what you were talking about... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye#Types_of_eye [wikipedia.org]

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

None of them have ever evolved Fresnel eyes?
That seems a little strange, i'd have expected something similar to have evolved by now, even if it used several separate lenses with holes to create it.
In fact, a zoom based eye as well.
Come evolution, stop being lazy!

Oh well, by the time it happens, humans would have already replicated both with technology.
I can't wait till i have a 10x zoom eye. Now i don't need those binoculars to spy on my hot neighbor.

Re:

[mikael]

There is also a type of fish that have telescopic eyes:

The telescope fish [dkimages.com]

Telescopefish [wikipedia.org]

I wonder if human bred species should get a mention:

Celestial Eye Goldfish [qyhongda.com]

Bubble Eye Goldfish [microscopy-uk.org.uk]

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Missing option: zero.

Re:

[AaxelB]

I don't think so; it looks like the fish has relatively normal eyes, but has mirrors on either side which allow it to see straight down. That could be a huge advantage, analogous to being the only car on the road with rear-view/side mirrors.

In other news Texas Instruments sues Nature

[erroneus]

Texas Instruments, the holder of several patents related to DLP technolgy has filed suit in a Texas court with a complaint related to the use of their tiny mirror imaging technology.

I hear Case is looking for a new girlfriend.

[Papatoast]

//first thing I think of when I hear mirror eyes/shades

Re:

[Rene S. Hollan]

... and a great "Whoosh!" was heard above all the non-Gibson fans.

Objects In Eye Are Closer Than They Appear

[jbezorg]

There, now it's been done.

Better link showing how the eye is arranged.

[Myrv]

I was having trouble visualizing how this works but then I found this link with a diagram of the eye's anatomy [scienceblogs.com]

Brownsnout Spookfish?

[kwabbles]

Is that anything like the Corneyed Lumpfish that frequent my septic pool?

All determined from a single fish

[jschen]

The actual scientific publication is currently an advanced article (i.e. available online, but not yet in print) in Current Biology. I found the beginning of the experimental procedures interesting (emphasis mine): "A single specimen of Dolichopteryx longipes..." They deduced an awful lot of information from one fish. There's pictures of the fish and the eyes in the article. I don't understand much of the articles, but the pictures and diagrams are fascinating.

"Perfectly Curved Surfaces"

[Apple Acolyte]

"the light focused by the mirrors' perfectly curved surfaces provides a major advantage over other fish."

I guess that's evolution for you, with all of its perfectly curved surfaces. One hell of a design for having no designer other than selection and millions of years of trial and error, right? That's how one perfects complex genetic encoding, right? Really makes a lot of sense to so many of you, doesn't it? :-D

Re:

[mikael]

Animals such as cats and dogs (and even albinohumans) have reflective surfaces in their eyes, the tapetum lucidum [npr.org].

For any creature that hunts at night, any modification that increase the amount of photons that reaches the rods and cones of the retina are going to be of benefit. Having this reflective in front of the retina would also be to an advantage. For a creature living underwater, having a reflective surface that concentrates light from above into the retina would also be an advantage, but it would no

So, humans aren't vertebrates?

[trolltalk.com]

"The brownsnout spookfish in the Pacific is the first known vertebrate to use mirrors to focus light into its eyes"

We've been using mirrors for telescopes for a lot longer than we've known about the spookfish.

Should Rename the Hubblefish

[BigAssRat]

They should rename it he Hubblefish.

Because Spookfish Sounds Like a Southpark Episode

[BigAssRat]

for some reason that was deleted from my original comment...