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Being transparent (or nearly so) doesn’t mean animals
have nothing to hide. On the contrary, their lack of pigmentation can
help them elude predators who literally see right through them.
Transparency also allows creatures to conserve precious resources, a
benefit anyone can see.
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Transparent Frog
Native to Venezuela, the Glass Frogs belong to the amphibian family
Centrolenidae (order Anura). While the general background coloration of
most glass frogs is primarily lime green, the abdominal skin of some
members of this family is transparent, so that the heart, liver, and
digestive tract are visible through their translucent skin. |
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Transparent Head Fish
This bizarre deep-water fish called the Barreleye (Macropinna microstoma)
has a transparent head and tubular eyes. It has extremely
light-sensitive eyes that can rotate within his transparent,
fluid-filled shield on its head, while the fish’s tubular eyes, well
inside the head, are capped by bright green lenses. The eyes point
upward (as shown here) when the fish is looking for food overhead. They
point forward when the fish is feeding. The two spots above the fish’s
mouth are not eyes: those are olfactory organs called nares, which are
analogous to human nostrils. |
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Transparent Butterfly
Found in Central America, from Mexico to Panama, the Glasswing Butterfly
(Greta Oto) is a brush-footed butterfly where its wings are transparent.
The tissue between the veins of its wings looks like glass. |
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Transparent Squid
Found on the southern hemisphere’s oceans, the Glass Squid (Teuthowenia
pellucida) has light organs on its eyes and possesses the ability to
roll into a ball, like an aquatic hedgehog. It is prey of many deep-sea
fish (eg goblin sharks) as well as whales and oceanic seabirds. |
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Transparent Zebrafish created by scientists
This see-through zebrafish was created in 2008 by scientists so they can
study disease processes, including the spread of cancer. The transparent
fish are allowing researchers at Children’s Hospital Boston to directly
view fish’s internal organs and observe processes such as tumor growth
in real-time in living organisms.
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Transparent Icefish
Fund in the cold waters around Antarctica and southern South America,
the crocodile icefish (Channichthyidae) feed on krill, copepods, and
other fish. Their blood is transparent because they have no hemoglobin
and/or only defunct erythrocytes. Their metabolism relies only on the
oxygen dissolved in the liquid blood, which is believed to be absorbed
directly through the skin from the water. This works because water can
dissolve the most oxygen when it is coldest. In five species, the gene
for myoglobin in the muscles has also vanished, leaving them with white
instead of pink hearts.
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Transparent Amphipod
Called Phronima, this unusual animal is one of the many strange species
recently found on an expedition to a deep-sea mountain range in the
North Atlantic. In an ironic strategy for survival, this tiny shrimp
like creature shows everything it has, inside and out, in an attempt to
disappear. Many other small deep-sea creatures are transparent as well,
or nearly so, to better camouflage themselves in their murky
surroundings, scientists say.
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Transparent Larval Shrimp
Found in the in the waters around Hawaii, this transparent larval shrimp
piggybacks on an equally see-through jellyfish.
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Transparent Salp
This jellyfish-like animals known as Salps feed on small plants in the
water called phytoplankton (marine algae). They are transparent,
barrel-shaped animals that can range from one to 10cm in length.
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Transparent Jellyfish
Jellyfish are free-swimming members of the phylum Cnidaria. They are
found in every ocean, from the surface to the deep sea. Many jellies are
so transparent that they are almost impossible to see. The one above is
from the Arctapodema genus, with a size of an inch-long
(2.5-centimeter-long).
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