Bioluminescence is the phenomenon exhibited by various organisms both on land and water bodies. The organisms display sparkling tiny specks of bright light from their bodies and always a feast for the eyes in the dark.
Typically thousands of fireflies and glowworms flying in forests or marshylands is a spectracular sight. This light originates from a process called bioluminescence which is the name given to the visible light emission (‘living light’) from living organisms.
It is widely distributed in nature (~ 666 genera from 13 phyla). In the marine environment, it has been established that in the sparsely lit mid-ocean between 200 and 1200 m depth, around 95 per cent of fish and 86 per cent of shrimps and squid are bioluminescent. In surface water, around 10 per cent organisms exhibit bioluminescence while in the abyssal depths, nearly 25 per cent respectively of organisms are bioluminescent.
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