The Secret To The Sea Sapphire’s Colors And Invisibility

Video shows a tiny, little known copepods known as the sea sapphire, these guys appear to flash in and out of existence, has to do with the angle of the light hitting them and uhh well just watch the video its cool

They flash brilliantly then become clear in color, amazing light show, I am always a sucker for any aquatic life.

Very cool; I will send this to my friend that is a nut about his reef tanks to see if his bio-systems would support something like this. I would like to see them in real life.

Thanks for posting.

Some of the most frightening and most beautiful animals one will ever see, do come from the sea IMO.

Thanks for the share on this one as I had never even heard of them.

Now if only these guys were the size of a small dog

a reply to: Lysergic

That would be awesome and terrifying.

You would be pretty safe walking them at night though. Built in safety light.

Very impressive. Now only if we can figure out how to make it work for the military, lol.

Very cool, thanx! Just when you thought you'd seen it all! Gods creation never stops amazing us.

Wow. There's something new for me. The only other creature I know that looks that colorful are iridescent butterflies.
The closest thing we have is polychromatic paint for cars. Now if they can just get the invisibility bit done as well ...

I want a coat and trousers made out of one of those...

Oh yeah and a pair of shoes too...

a reply to: Lysergic

WOW. I have never heard of these before. THANK YOU for sharing this.
Nature's wonders are beyond our imagination.

originally posted by: RealTruthSeeker
Very impressive. Now only if we can figure out how to make it work for the military, lol.

No real military use we know how it's done. The creature is transparent.and it has tightly packed crystals on its back, these crystal layers are separated by only about four ten thousandths of a millimeter. What this means is the crystals interfere width everything but blue light. Or depending on spacing other colors as well. However the blue your seeing will only show when light flows through it.

It is probably one of the most beautiful sea creatures because much like diamonds they refract light. Only the males have these crystals and by no coincidence the females have much larger eyes to watch the light display.

a reply to: notmyrealname

Looks like the video was done in a reef tank setup, isopods and copepods are essential to an in closed reef bio systems. Things he'll have to consider are, 1. Does his setup match this little fellas natural environment (salinity, calcium, nitrate, nitrite, temperature. 2. Does any of his current fish eat copepods, like Mandarin gobies. Mandarins would eradicate them from the closed system. I had tons of copepods living in my live rock until I dropped in a Mandarin. 3. These copepods are not going to be easy to come by. In most places, commercial harvesting of tropical fish and corals from the ocean reefs is very illegal. Most stuff in fish stores or online is farm raised.