nanodash: This is a Sea Sapphire! And when it doesn’t look...

By: vivian on quarta-feira, julho 22, 2015

nanodash:

This is a Sea Sapphire! And when it doesn’t look amazing it’s invisible!

This is a type of crustacean called a copepod. It’s back is covered in guanine crystals. If it weren’t for these crystals the Sea Sapphire would be transparent, but these crystals are spaced in such a way that they strongly reflect certain colours of light. The colour of the light that’s reflected is dependent on the angle that it comes in.

Usually, it reflects blue light, but when the light hits the Sea Sapphire at 45 degrees, the reflected light shifts into the ultraviolet. And since we can’t see that it becomes invisible!

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