Creatures of Light

June 2, 2021 — September 5, 2021

Timed entry only. Gallery 3, third floor.

Welcome to the world of bioluminescence—the generation of light by living things.

Explore the extraordinary organisms that blink, glow, flash, and glitter in the immersive exhibition Creatures of Light.

Members See it Free!

Members enjoy special benefits, including free admission to special exhibitions. Not a Member?

Join Now »

creatures-light-oyster-mushrooms-600-600

Featured in Creatures of Light

From fireflies found in backyards across the Northeast to the deep-sea fishes that illuminate the perpetually dark ocean depths, discover how light is used to attract a mate, lure unsuspecting prey, or defend against predators.

[MUSIC]

Photos of deep sea fish and glowing anemones and corals flash by under the American Museum of Natural History logo.

JOHN SPARKS (Curator, Division of Invertebrate Zoology, AMNH): The most surprising thing about bioluminescence since I've started studying it is–

SPARKS appears on screen, speaking to camera in a laboratory. Text appears: “John Sparks, Curator, Creatures of Light.”

SPARKS: –just how widespread it is across the tree of life.

Timelapse images of fireflies appear on screen with speckles of light.

SPARKS: Most people may remember fireflies from their youth,

Flickering and undulating blue lights of microorganisms in water.

SPARKS: or seen images of the dinoflagellates that light up some tropical waters.

The camera swims over corals and anemones in an underwater reef.

SPARKS: You find it in sea cucumbers, starfishes, bacteria–

Fish swim in and out of an anemone underwater.

SPARKS: –all the way up to vertebrates, fishes.

MARC BRANHAM appears on screen, speaking to camera from a laboratory. Text appears: “Marc Branham, Associate Professor, University of Florida.”

MARC BRANHAM (Associate Professor, University of Florida): What I find most fascinating about this exhibit on bioluminescence is,

A photo of visitors to the Creatures of Light exhibit walking over projected images of bioluminescent marine organisms.

BRANHAM: that as you walk through the exhibit you get a personal experience with–

A photo of glow worm strings hanging from a cave, followed by an image of bioluminescent fungus on a tree, and an image of the trails of bioluminescent dinoflagellates in the water.

BRANHAM: –each kind of bioluminescent organism and so it's a smorgasbord of kinds of signals and signaling systems.

More timelapse images of firefly paths. SPARKS reappears on screen.

SPARKS: I'm most excited about how accurate we're making all the models people will see in the exhibit,

SPARKS looks at different models of animals in a studio, pointing at different features. SPARKS reappears on screen speaking to camera.

SPARKS: right down to the emission of the wavelength one would see out in nature in the live animal.

An image of a fluorescent coral reef, with a bright green eel swimming over a deep red reef bed with a green coral positioned on it as a blue octopus swims by. Someone shows off a fish from the Museum collections in a jar.

SPARKS: But we also show the organism blown up much larger than life

Exhibition artists sculpt fish models, using specimen images as a reference.

SPARKS: to show in really intricate detail what the actual organism producing the light looks like,

SPARKS compares a specimen fish to a model of the same fish with exhibition sculptors.

SPARKS: so people can see that firsthand.

The camera pans down an image of a scuba diver on a coral reef.

DAVID GRUBER (Research Associate, Division of Vertebrate Zoology, AMNH): I'm excited about the coral wall that we shot in Cayman Islands.

A scuba diver swims over a colorful reef with many anemones, corals, and sponges on it.

GRUBER: It is one of the places on the planet teeming with animals

The camera swims through a reef canyon with walls covered with coral and teeming with fish.

GRUBER: that you barely even see with the naked eye, and what we did in this project–with Jim Hellemn,

GRUBER appears on screen, speaking to camera from a laboratory. Text appears: “David Gruber, research associate, Division of Vertebrate Zoology.”

GRUBER: an underwater photographer–we shot hundreds of little photos very close up and then stitched them together.

The camera pans over images of the Bloody Bay Wall and how it appears in different kinds of light. Text in the bottom right corner reads “Photo by Jim Hellemn, portraitofacoralreef.com”

GRUBER: This is probably one of the closest experiences you can get to actually scuba diving on a coral wall as magnificent as the Bloody Bay Wall.

A graphic card appears, with the American Museum of Natural History logo in the top left, and text that reads “Creatures of Light: Nature’s Bioluminescence. June 2, 2021–September 5, 2021” over a cartoon image of a glowing angler fish.

Credits roll.

Creatures of Light: Nature’s Bioluminescence is organized by the American Museum of Natural History, New York, in collaboration with the Canadian Museum of Nature, Ottawa, Canada, and The Field Museum, Chicago.

Video

AMNH / L. Stevens & J. Bauerle

AMNH / Department of Exhibition

AMNH / K. Corben, J. Sparks, D. Gruber & V. Pieribone

David Conover

David Gruber

Images / Archive

AMNH / D. Finnin

AMNH / R. Mickens

David Gruber

Jim Hellemn, portraitofacoralreef.com

Tsuneaki Hiramatsu

Neil van Niekerk

John Sparks

FMNH / L. Smith

Edith A. Widder

Music

“Soaring Skylab” by Martin Hilton / Warner/Chappell Production Music

[END MUSIC]

Meet the Fireflies

The insects of the world have many ways to signal one another. Several groups of insects glow, but only one, fireflies, has evolved an extraordinary language of light.

Find out how fireflies use a system of flashes in some of the same ways we use words: to attract, to say, “Here I am,” even to deceive.

A larger-than-life model of a dragonfly is suspended from the ceiling near a digital display screen that contains content about fireflies.

A Mysterious Cave

Deep inside a New Zealand cave, hungry glowworms create a brilliant light show. Discover how these glittering glowworms use their bright tails to lure aquatic insects, then reel them in to eat their catch.

A Sparkling Sea

Imagine a midnight dip in Mosquito Bay, a quiet lagoon on the island of Vieques in Puerto Rico. Mysteriously, when you touch the waves, your hand leaves a trail of sparks in the water.

Learn all about the single-celled organisms, called dinoflagellates, that flash on contact—and shine brightest on nights following bright sunny days.

A Night Dive

When night falls on a coral reef, the dazzling colors of daytime disappear. But if divers shine blue or violet light, another view of the reef emerges: Corals that once were dull now glow in neon shades of pink, orange and green.

Find out how these brilliant corals and other organisms, including jellyfish, absorb one color of light, and emit light of another color—and how scientists have turned fluorescence into an important biological tool.

The Deep Ocean

Descend into an alien world where the only glimmers of light are made by living things.

Here, living creatures never see the light of day. Instead of relying on sunlight, animals like deep-sea squid and anglerfish flash and sparkle like fireworks.

Resources For Educators: Creatures of Light

Creatures of Light: Nature's Bioluminescence is organized by the American Museum of Natural History, New York, in collaboration with the Canadian Museum of Nature, Ottawa, Canada, and The Field Museum, Chicago.

Generous support for Creatures of Light has been provided by the Eileen P. Bernard Exhibition Fund.