UV Lights Up Marine Fish

By Jill P. Zamzow, Peter A. Nelson, George S. Losey

Some fish have eyes that capture and perceive ultraviolet wavelengths, and many fish must cope with UV's effects

Biology Evolution Ecology

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November-December 2008

Volume 96, Number 6
Page 482

DOI: 10.1511/2008.75.482

The human eye perceives the underwater world as a deep-blue. Water absorbs most of the longer wavelengths of light that we can see, such as the reds and yellows, leaving the remaining ambient light enriched in the shorter-wavelength blues and violets. What humans cannot see, however, is that water also transmits even shorter wavelengths—those of the ultraviolet (UV).

Courtesy of Ulrike Siebeck of the University of Queensland

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