Shining Fish, Flesh, and Wood 469 



spirit unfolds itself, starting from the heart, together with heat. 

 From there brilliance blooms forth on the tender cheeks and appears 

 on other parts of the body [limbs]." 



Luminous Fish and Invertebrates 



Many examples of luminous flesh were reported among cold- 

 blooded animals, especially fish and invertebrates. One much quoted 

 account of a luminous dead fish came from Olaus Wormius (1588- 



1654) , professor of Greek, medicine, and physics at Copenhagen 

 and possessor of a famous museum, whose contents were described 

 in Museum Wormianum seu Historia Rerum Rarioriim (Leyden, 



1655) . This book described the Scorpio marinus ^- (p. 267) but 

 did not mention luminescence. However, in a letter to Bartholin, ^^ 

 Worm wrote: " The other day my maid had bought in the fish 

 market among other fish the Scorpio marinus, which is so called in 

 Schonveld, but colloquially en Ulk. She skinned it and threw away 

 skin and head into a place destined for waste. After several days a 

 servant went there around twilight and saw an unusual light shining 

 in the dark, which filled him with considerable fear," but he finally 

 " discovered the head and skin of the fish which had been discarded." 

 Worm wrote: " I believe that the sticky and mucous liquid on a 

 snowy-white subject disposed toward putrefaction has much con- 

 tributed to the nature of this light." 



Another luminous fish was described by Georgius Marcgiavius 

 (1610-1644) in the Historia Rerum Naturalium Brasiliae, published 

 in 1648 at Amsterdam. He spoke of a scaly and brilliant fish of 

 Brazil, the " jurucapeba " or " itajara," whose sides became lumi- 

 nous at night. It has been identified from the figure as one of the 

 Serranidae, the sea perches or sea bass, Serranus itaiara. Some of 

 the Serranidae, for example, Apogon marginatus of Japan, are lumi- 

 nous when living and may contain luminous bacteria living sym- 

 biotically within them. If this is true of the " jurucapeba," Marc- 

 grave's observation is the first report of symbiotic luminescence in 

 any animal. His statement is: " Parieti recens appensus noctu toto 

 corpore clare lucet," which may be translated, " When fresh,^* if 



^* The fishing frog (Lophius piscatorius) , a fish sometimes referred to as the marine 

 scorpion. 



^^ Bartholin, De luce animalium, Book II, Cap. 15, 1647. 



^* A Portuguese translation of Marcgrave, Historia natural do Brasil, was published 

 at Sao Paulo in 1942. It honors the man who first made a detailed study of the 

 plants and animals of Brazil. The account of Jurucapeba, identified by Dr. Paulo 

 Sawaya, is on p. 147. He writes me that the Portuguese word " fresco " used for the 

 Latin " recens " is applied to a caught fish which cannot breathe but whose gills are 

 still bright red. 



