I know a ciliate called Noctiluca which is luminescent.
About 0.1 mm in diameter.
Can be seen with naked eye if its throwing out the light.
Grows well at about 20 oC temperature.
Requirement: Clean (unpolluted) water with sufficient organic matter to
grow.
Do you think this describes the conditions & what you saw?
Abhay
----- Original Message -----
From: Sverre Ulland <saugull at online.no>
To: <microbio at hgmp.mrc.ac.uk>
Sent: Saturday, August 03, 2002 4:33 AM
Subject: Fluorecent stuff on beach
> Hello there
>> Tonight i was down at the beach for a walk. It was 0:00 at night, and
pretty
> dark. I was walking down by the sea, occasionally getting my feet wet.
After
> a while i noticed a certain glow in the sand i kicked in front of me.
There
> were tiny speckles of greenish light which quickly disappeared. Soon
> afterwards, i saw that the same greenish dots were in the water too, at
the
> very front of the small waves breaking in on the shore (quiet night, calm
> sea). What are those? My immedeate thought was that they were fluorecent
> bacterea, but I am not quite sure. Any thoughts are welcome.
>> regards
> sven
> norway
>> (manually x-posted on sci.bio.microbiology)
>>>
---
