Glowing animals

Attractive photos of animals expressing green fluorescent proteins (GFP).

A report in the April issue of journal BMC Evolutionary Biology.
"Amphioxus encodes the largest known family of green fluorescent proteins, which have diversified into distinct functional classes."
Amphioxus (lancelets, Branchiostoma floridae) is a primitive chordate that provides indications about the origins of the vertebrates. It is known that Amphioxus has GFP gene and shows intense fluorescence mainly in the head region.
In the report, researchers at the University of California San Diego discovered that the amphioxus genome encodes 16 closely-related GFP-like proteins. Some GFPs with low fluorescence capacity have different characteristics, such as light production and antioxidant capacity to protect the animal in times of illness or stress.

My head glows in time of stress. Sometimes I fire a missile from my head.