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The visual pigments of a deep-water malacosteid fish

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 May 2009

Frederick Crescitelli
Frederick Crescitelli
Affiliation:
Department of Biology, University of California, Los Angeles, California, 90024, USA
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Extract

The present investigation is a confirmation and extension of the idea that visual pigments adapted to the quality of their own bioluminescence have evolved in certain deep-water marine fishes. In this case a single fish (Malacosteus danae) of the family Malacosteidae, known to have red-emitting photophores, was trawled up in daylight from the Pacific off the coast of Southern California. Retinal extractions were found to contain two photopigments with absorbance maxima, one at 556 nm, the second at 514 nm. From the spectral positions of the oximes formed by bleaching in the presence of hydroxylamine it was inferred that the 556-pigment is an A2-pigment and the 514-pigment, an Aj-pigment. Evidence was also obtained from the effect of hydroxylamine on the unbleached extract of the possible presence of a photopigment that was bleached by the daylight when the fish was brought to the surface. This pigment, also identified as an A,-component from the oxime spectrum, could have been a moiety of the 514-photopigment but the possibility of a third visual pigment in the retina of this fish cannot be discounted. Except for this hydroxylamine effect the results are in agreement with published data from Aristostomias scintillans.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom , Volume 69 , Issue 1 , February 1989 , pp. 43 - 51
Copyright
Copyright © Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom 1989

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References

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