Cystisoma: Transparent Deep Sea Marvel

Transparency in marine animals is something rare but not super uncommon. However, it's mostly limited to "basic" animals like jellyfish.

For more complex creatures, it's almost impossible to achieve since there are some many kinds of tissues and organs involved.

Yet, nothing is impossible! Check out this shrimp like creature I learnt about today:

Damn! Other than that little orange spot it's entirely see through! It's almost impossible to believe such a thing exists even after watching it on a video.

So what you just saw is an individual of the Cystisoma genus. These are deep sea amphipods typically at depths of hundreds of meters where there is very little light, making them pretty much invisible.

The only pigmentation they have is in their eyes but even those are adapted in such a way to minimize their visibility. Normally, the eye pigments are concentrated in a small area. However, in cystisoma the retina is spread in sheet of tiny reddish dots that are almost impossible for most animals to see.

Essentially, the only organ they fail to conceal is their stomach as you can see in the video I posted above.

Other than the lack of pigments, they employ another neat mechanisms to achieve their transparency. Their body is covered by microscopic sperical structures that act as an antireflective coating. The exact nature of these spheres is unknown, one theory is that they maybe colonies of yet undescribed bacteria. Wikipedia and this article by The guardian has some more info on this amazing critters if you'd like to read more on them.

I'll leave you now with some more vids:

Ok frens, this is it for today! See you soon with more bizarre wonders of mother nature!

Posted Using INLEO