The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
‘LIGHT’ SHOW
Exhibition at Cleveland Museum of Natural History focuses on organisms that glow in the dark
If you just glanced inside the big exhibition space at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, you may think the attraction on Wade Oval Drive was suddenly into mood lighting. ¶ The space is rather dark these days, tastefully illuminated — even glowing — here and there. ¶ No, this isn’t some new hip afterhours lounge. It’s “Creatures of Light: Nature’s Glowing Mysteries,” an exhibition created by the American Museum of Natural History in New York that will be in Cleveland into the very early days of 2018.
“Creatures of Light” is designed to, well, illuminate visitors about earth’s myriad bioluwminescent organisms, most of with which many humans will never come into contact.
“This is something the public knows a little of, but not very much,” says Tim Matson, curator and head of vertebrate zoology, during a recent walk-through of “Creatures of Light.” “This is a very good presentation of a lot of organisms, types of organisms, that produce light — or, if they don’t produce light, they modify light.”
Most of the species folks will learn about in “Creatures of Light” are invertebrates — Matson sounds wistful when he says that very recent discoveries of more light-producing vertebrates, including reptiles and amphibians, couldn’t have been included in this exhibition, which is only a few years old — from the insects to even tinier organisms.
Regardless, the process of creating light most commonly is tied to a chemical reaction.
“Although the production of light is physiologically consistent across bioluminescent organisms,” says Gavin Svenson, assistant director of science and curator and head of invertebrate zoology at the museum, in a news release, “the purpose of the light production differs greatly and points to an amazing array of interesting adaptations.”
An illustration of that is the use of light produced by fireflies, a commonly known family of beetles.
“There are a lot of species,” Matson says. “We do have a number of species in our area.”
And they use light differently, although you may need to study closely to notice.
“They flash in different colors. They flash in different sequences — some look like Morse code,” Matson says. “Maybe the male will flash two or three times, but the female will flash uniformly, continuously, and this will vary between species.”
Two uses of light by fireflies — and other species — are to attract potential mates and prey.
“They flash, and the prey sees it, goes to investigate, and the predator who’s larger, who flashed it — bingo, they just got lunch,” he says.
Matson points out the opposite can happen — that a bigger insect than the flasher arrives on the scene and that it is the bigger insect who just scored a meal.
As for mating, fireflies can use flash patterns to attract members of the same species. However, Matson says, “Females can deceive a male of another species they want to eat.”
Man, it’s rough out there for fireflies on the singles scene.
A few feet from the area of the exhibit devoted to fireflies is an unusual station pertaining to other insects. This area on the floor, which you can walk across, is devoted to a type gloworm from the gnat family that populates caves in New Zealand.
“It kind of reminds you of looking up into the sky and seeing stars,” Matson says.
“These lights are flashes to entice other insects to come up there, and they get stuck and eaten by the gnat.”
Another insect featured in “Creatures of Light” is a species of millipede — one of about eight that produce light out of roughly 1,200, according to Matson — that produces cyanide and releases it through its pores.
“(The light) is a warning to potential predators — ‘Hey, I am toxic. You’d better leave me alone.’”
Because so many of the planet’s light-producing or -manipulating organisms live in the deep sea, a huge percentage of “Creatures of Light” is devoted to what goes on in the ocean. And, says Matson, researchers have only begun to scratch the surface, if you will.
“We know relatively little about the deep-sea organisms,” he says. “We’re learning
more and more about this, but there’s so much down there we don’t know.”
You’ll learn about fish that can create light in their stomachs as a means of camouflage.
“This is designed for fish that are in the mid-depth zone, if you will, maybe 400 to about 1,000 feet,” Matson says. “So when a predator’s looking up, it sees a lighter area up here. When the fish is lit from underneath, the predator doesn’t see (the fish) so much because it’s illuminated underneath.
Some similar fish can light up their sides to attract mates, he says.
Speaking of predators, perhaps you remember that nightmarish fish from the 2003 animated film “Finding Nemo” with an illuminated growth that hangs above its ferocious mouth of large teeth? That’s a deepsea angler, and a re-creation of it hangs high enough in the exhibit where the little ones may not even see it.
“This is bait, if you will,” says Matson, gesturing to the growth. “It’s a projection right in front of the mouth, and the light will flash on and off.”
Another attention-grabber is the vampire squid, which also resides deep in the ocean. It has what almost looks like a cape, a feature that inspired its name.
“These guys are kind of neat because if they feel threatened, they light up, and that startles the predator,” Matson says. “And then they move off, and they use this kind of curtain to cover themselves and the lights are concealed so they just go dark, so there’s no light and it’s very difficult for the predator to locate them.”
The exhibition leaves visitors with a station about the research being done deep in the oceans.
“We’re just really starting to get into this now and find out what’s going on down there,” he says. “It’s not just a bunch of animals living in the dark.”
“Creatures of Light: Nature’s Glowing Mysteries” continues through Jan. 7 at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, One Wade Oval Drive. It is included with general admission: $15 for adults, $12 for seniors and youth ages 3 to 12 and free for museum members and children under 3. For more information visit CMNH. org or call 216-231-4600.