Aristostomias scintillans (Malacosteidae): a deep-sea fish with visual pigments apparently adapted to its own bioluminescence.

Abstract Extracts of visual pigments in digitonin were prepared from the bioluminescent deep-sea fish,Aristostomias scintillans (Gilbert, 1915) (family Malacosteidae, suborder Stomiatoidei, order Salmoniformes). Partial bleaching analysis in the presence of hydroxylamine revealed the presence of two photo-pigments having absorbance maxima at 551 and 526 nm, respectively. These pigments appear to be especially adapted for perceiving the red and green luminescence emitted byA. scintillans. No photopigment with high sensitivity in the red has previously been extracted from a deep-sea animal. The chromophore of the 526 nm pigment is retinal but that of the 551 nm pigment is probably 3-dehydroretinal.

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