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Stupid question... do we(people of earth and the land-above) not "blind" these creatures ? The ones that do have "light sensitive eyes/appendixes" these must be

Stupid question... do we(people of earth and the land-above) not "blind" these creatures ? The ones that do have "light sensitive eyes/appendixes" these must be INCREDIBLE sensitive to capture the very very limited light down at those depths ? Then we come with our zillion-lumens-spotlights ?

londons_explore 6y ago
Most likely, yes. But it might be worthwhile to blind/kill a few creatures to better understand them to be able to protect the rest.
pvaldes 6y ago
> Do we blind them? Yes But even if we would blind them (either temporarily or permanently), they would remain still mostly functional or fully functional. Still able to feed, move and escape from predators with their other three or four main senses intact. I'm generalizing, of course, each species is different but this means that the animals can always choose to escape from the light, but they aren't choosing it for some reason. Petrified by fear, curious, hungry, or feeling that remaining in the light is safer than running into the obscurity after being exposed... we don't know On the other hand both, the animals in the light and those who remain in the dark out of the light circle and will not be blinded can have a glimpse of their surroundings in a totally different "light" and access for a brief moment to a totally new understanding of this world. Would be interesting to know what pass by that cephalopod brain when seeing the real aspect of its companion species for the first time in their life. Will be this information allow them to associate a particular stimulus with the arrival of a particular predator, and be useful in the future? maybe, maybe not.
xuki 6y ago
Maybe they don’t even have a light sensor? There would be no light down there whatsoever so it would make sense to eliminate that part to conserve energy.
thdrdt 6y ago
Not a stupid question. And this Reddit contains multiple answers: https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/2n1yd4/how_is_it_that_when_deep_sea_creatures_are_filmed/ https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/2n1yd4/how_is_i... Yes, they get blind from white light.
plq 6y ago
Most probably, but at those depths they should be relying on other "sensors" to survive as there is not that much light to illuminate their surroundings anyway. Edit: And then there's the anglerfish with its bioluminescent lure on its head: https://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/00000144-0a34-d3cb-a96c-7b3d3ad40000 https://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/00000144-0a34-d3c... The seas are home to such fascinating creatures ...

londons_explore 6y ago

Most likely, yes. But it might be worthwhile to blind/kill a few creatures to better understand them to be able to protect the rest.

pvaldes 6y ago

> Do we blind them? Yes But even if we would blind them (either temporarily or permanently), they would remain still mostly functional or fully functional. Still able to feed, move and escape from predators with their other three or four main senses intact. I'm generalizing, of course, each species is different but this means that the animals can always choose to escape from the light, but they aren't choosing it for some reason. Petrified by fear, curious, hungry, or feeling that remaining in the light is safer than running into the obscurity after being exposed... we don't know On the other hand both, the animals in the light and those who remain in the dark out of the light circle and will not be blinded can have a glimpse of their surroundings in a totally different "light" and access for a brief moment to a totally new understanding of this world. Would be interesting to know what pass by that cephalopod brain when seeing the real aspect of its companion species for the first time in their life. Will be this information allow them to associate a particular stimulus with the arrival of a particular predator, and be useful in the future? maybe, maybe not.

xuki 6y ago

Maybe they don’t even have a light sensor? There would be no light down there whatsoever so it would make sense to eliminate that part to conserve energy.

thdrdt 6y ago

Not a stupid question. And this Reddit contains multiple answers: https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/2n1yd4/how_is_it_that_when_deep_sea_creatures_are_filmed/ https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/2n1yd4/how_is_i... Yes, they get blind from white light.

plq 6y ago

Most probably, but at those depths they should be relying on other "sensors" to survive as there is not that much light to illuminate their surroundings anyway. Edit: And then there's the anglerfish with its bioluminescent lure on its head: https://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/00000144-0a34-d3cb-a96c-7b3d3ad40000 https://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/00000144-0a34-d3c... The seas are home to such fascinating creatures ...