Biofluorescent (UV) Night-Diving

If you think you’ve seen it all under water it’s time to try a UV or Bio-fluorescent Night dive in Cambodia. You will see things you’ve never seen before and see the things you know and love under a whole different light… literally.

What most of us don't know is that there is an entire ecosystem of glow-in-the-dark creatures beneath the surface of the ocean. Scientists are in the process of studying the underwater creatures, trying to learn how they light up and why.

Biofluorescent organisms absorb light, transform it and “re-emit” it as a different color. They do not give off light from their own power source, nor is it a chemical reaction according to Luminescent Labs. When you shine a high-energy light, like a blue light, at the Biofluorescent organisms and see a color like green, it is because the molecules are "excited" by the high-evergy light and lose a part of their light energy and show the rest at a lower-energy wavelength, which appears green.

New research shows that marine fish use red biofluorescence to communicate. This goes against previous theories that fish can't see this deep-red colour of the spectrum. This finding could mean that red-eye wrasses use their fluorescence as a private frequency to communicate.