It’s a little-appreciated fact that most of the animals in our ocean make light. I’ve spent most of my career studying this phenomenon called bioluminescence. I study it because I think understanding it is critical to understanding life in the ocean where most bioluminescence occurs. Edith Widder Read Quote
It is clear that if we are going to understand ocean ecosystems, we need to understand the part that bioluminescence plays in those ecosystems. Edith Widder Read Quote
This is part of what’s driving me, is this feeling like there’s so much yet to be discovered in the oceans, and we’re destroying it before we even know what’s in it. Edith Widder Read Quote
There’s a lionfish cookbook put out by the Reef Environmental Educational Foundation, and it tells you how to catch them, how to clean them. Edith Widder Read Quote
That’s a real problem when people bring exotics into their homes. Sometimes it’s by accident, but sometimes it’s on purpose. Edith Widder Read Quote
I developed my camera system, called the Medusa, jointly with a colleague down in Australia as a method of exploring the ocean unobtrusively. The critical thing was that we didn’t use white light, which I believe has been scaring the animals away. Edith Widder Read Quote
Squid don’t eat jellyfish, but they eat the things that eat the jellyfish. Jellyfishes put on a lightshow to attract a larger predator. It’s caught in the clutches of something like a fish and has no hope for escape unless its lightshow attracts something bigger that will attack their attacker. Edith Widder Read Quote
The giant squid has the biggest eyes of any animal on the planet. It’s a visual predator. Edith Widder Read Quote
Now we have new tools for exploring the deep and have to pull together a deep exploration program that takes advantage of them. Edith Widder Read Quote
I have made hundreds of dives in submersibles, with each dive holding the promise of seeing an organism or a behavior that no one has ever seen before. But I have always wondered about the animals and behaviors that we’re not seeing because our bright lights and loud thrusters scare them away. Edith Widder Read Quote
