Open water camouflage via 'leaky' light guides in the midwater squid Galiteuthis

Galiteuthis, a midwater squid, has photophores on the ventral surfaces of its eyes. These photophores emit bioluminescence to counter-illuminate the shadows cast by the eyes in downwelling sunlight, thereby hiding the eyes from upward-looking predators. The photophores consist of laminated fibre-like cells with semi-coaxial protein-dense layers around axial cytoplasm. These cells have been suggested to function as light guides: bioluminescence is an isotropic process used to hide in an anisotropic light environment, so any emission must be reshaped to be effective. We found a wide variation in cross-sectional geometries of photophore cells; some were more efficient at light guiding than others. We used a set of optical models to place these photophores in the context of the radiance where Galiteuthis lives and discovered a possible adaptive reason for this variation. In Galiteuthis's horizontal and vertical range, ocean radiance is also quite variable. For complete camouflage, photophor...