It's a little-appreciated fact that most of the animals in our ocean make light. Edith Widder More Quotes by Edith Widder More Quotes From Edith Widder One of the things that's frustrated me as a deep-sea explorer is how many animals there probably are in the ocean that we know nothing about because of the way we explore the ocean. Edith Widder nothing me ocean way I developed an optical lure that imitates certain types of bioluminescent displays that I think might be attractive to large predators. The other way to do it is just use dead bait, but I think dead bait attracts scavengers, and we wanted to attract active predators. Edith Widder dead think attractive way Squid don't eat jellyfish, but they eat the things that eat the jellyfish. Jellyfishes put on a lightshow to attract a larger predator. It's caught in the clutches of something like a fish and has no hope for escape unless its lightshow attracts something bigger that will attack their attacker. Edith Widder fish escape will hope I loved anything to do with animals from a very early age. Edith Widder animals loved anything age I never, ever would have imagined the kind of career I've had. It just wouldn't have occurred to me that anything like this could have been possible. I didn't have any such aspirations. And I still can't believe my good fortune. Edith Widder never good me believe I have made hundreds of dives in submersibles, with each dive holding the promise of seeing an organism or a behavior that no one has ever seen before. But I have always wondered about the animals and behaviors that we're not seeing because our bright lights and loud thrusters scare them away. Edith Widder animals lights always behavior There's a lot of animals in the open ocean - most of them that make light. And we have a pretty good idea, for most of them, why. They use it for finding food, for attracting mates, for defending against predators. But when you get down to the bottom of the ocean, that's where things get really strange. Edith Widder good you light food In 2010, there was a TED event called Mission Blue held aboard the Lindblad Explorer in the Galapagos as part of the fulfillment of Sylvia Earle's TED wish. I spoke about a new way of exploring the ocean, one that focuses on attracting animals instead of scaring them away. Edith Widder ocean wish blue way If I go out in the open ocean environment, virtually anywhere in the world, and I drag a net from 3,000 feet to the surface, most of the animals - in fact, in many places, 80 to 90 percent of the animals that I bring up in that net - make light. This makes for some pretty spectacular light shows. Edith Widder ocean light feet world In 2008, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded for work done on a molecule called green fluorescent protein that was isolated from the bioluminescent chemistry of a jellyfish, and it's been equated to the invention of the microscope in terms of the impact that it has had on cell biology and genetic engineering. Edith Widder biology chemistry green work
