Sixgill sharks have fluorescent eyes?!!

:: Monday, September 29th, 2008 @ 5:21:43 pm

:: Tags: sharks

I found an article on sixgill sharks which states that sixgills have “small, flourescent [sic] green eyes with a black pupil.”

That a perfect example of a writer writing about something he/she has never seen before. In many photographs, the eyes of a sixgill shark do glow green, but that is because sixgills have a tapetum lucidum (like cats do), which reflects light (and thus, appear to glow green when the light source is close to the camera’s lens). In fact, I’ve seen shark eyes reflect like frickin’ laser beams at night when the light source is moved around a bit. It’s creepy.

I’m going to write an article about cats. I found this photo:

Photo: Una Smith (Creative Commons)

… and have concluded that cats have one fluorescent green eye, one glowing red eye, and generally look pissed off.

Actually, I was just looking through my sixgill shark images, and I found one that might prove that Seasky.org’s writer is right!

I don’t know how I could have missed it.

— Now, seriously —

Here is an actual photo of a sixgill shark’s eye, lit properly so light isn’t reflecting back from the tapetum lucidum:

Sixgill shark eye

Popularity: 1% | San Francisco, CA | link | trackback | Sep 29, 2008 17:21:43

:: 6 comments (rss)

1. posted by Tony on Tue, September 30, 2008 @ 10:10 am

   Hmm… maybe the author was using the word “fluorescent” to as an adjective to describe the color green (as I do to describe the fluorescent green jersey I’ll be forced to wear when I run the marathon as part of my charity obligations) as opposed to suggesting that the shark’s eyes possess the properties of fluorescence.

   Just a thought. Figured I’d inject my nit-picky lawyerliness.

2. posted by echeng on Tue, September 30, 2008 @ 11:26 am

   OK. I’m going to update this post with an actual photo of the shark’s eye. Stay tuned.

3. posted by Tony on Tue, September 30, 2008 @ 1:30 pm

   Ah. Point taken.

4. posted by Adman on Tue, September 30, 2008 @ 6:36 pm

   I wish you good luck in your mission to combat ignorance, wherever it may lurk.

   You are far, far braver than I.

   Adman

   PS: :)

5. posted by echeng on Tue, September 30, 2008 @ 11:27 pm

   I don’t really care if people are ignorant. I just take exception with uninformed editorial!

6. posted by norm on Wed, October 01, 2008 @ 1:53 pm

   People are allowed to be ignorant. They just need to do it quietly. :)

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