Hogfish ‘See’ with Their Skin, Even When They’re Dead | Hacker News Reader

Hogfish ‘See’ with Their Skin, Even When They’re Dead

nytimes.com

72 pointsgumby25 comments

Very interesting. I don't understand why it mentions this to be a brand new discovery, since the presence of opsins in the skin of animals for mimetism has been known for some time, e.g. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/octopuses... (2015)

It seems that the article you reference is more speculating but the article posted is much further along with some results.

...plus it covers a whole different type of animal (cephalopod vs. fish)

I believe there is some more recent work on this, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4448664/ """LACE (light-activated chromophore expansion) in isolated preparations suggests that octopus skin is intrinsically light sensitive and that this dispersed light sense might contribute to their unique and novel patterning abilities. Finally, our data suggest that a common molecular mechanism for light detection in eyes may have been co-opted for light sensing in octopus skin and then used for LACE."""

another, more recent paper, which is more of a review: https://www.cell.com/current-biology/pdf/S0960-9822(22)00659...

The discovery in the OP is of dermal photoreception in a vertabrate.

Article says it's the first case of opsins found in the skin of a vertebrate.

While I usually withhold personal comments here, I love this article because the Hogfish is the only main species here in Florida that for whatever reason I can't catch (while all my mates have). They even bought me a Hogfish cutting board to remind me each day of my "white whale." I'm so glad to read of their camouflage abilities to use that as an excuse!

Hopefully they've at least shared some with you, because it's delicious.

They've done that at least!

What is there to really see when you’re dead? If you were dead, would you want to see anything?

My guess is that it's like the eyes surviving to detect light after the parts of the brain that can interpret the light hitting the rods and cones has died.

It depends, do they have Netflix in the afterlife?

I really hope not, that sounds like a really bad limbo to be stuck into

Forced for all eternity watching just vids of YouTube influencers telling you their daily routine and making tier lists of stuff.

Worse, scrolling endlessly forever looking for something to watch.

Nails and hair continue to grow after the heart and brain stop, though obviously not perpetually.

That’s a misconception - hair and nails don’t continue growing after death. Retraction of the skin makes it appear as though they do. https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20130526-do-your-nails-gr...

Thanks! After typing that comment I began to wonder how that would work, but figured "hey if it's true, and I've heard it plenty of times, there must be something interesting going on".

Why have land animals never evolved adaptive camouflage?

Just taking a guess, but maybe translucent skin doesn't do as well for survival in the sun.

aren't fish with that feature also technically "under the sun" (dependent on visibility gained by the sun)?

Check out the Beer-Lambert law. Intensity declines exponentially with depth.

I would think Chameleons count has having active camouflage, no?

Good point, forgot about them. How about anything warm blooded?

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