Ultra-black nightmare fish reveal secrets of deep-ocean camouflage – CNET [CNET]

July 18, 2020 Thomas Giboney technology

As the names suggest, dragonfish and common fangtooth fish aren’t the cuddliest looking critters in the sea. They might appear nightmarish to squeamish humans, but they’re of great interest to scientists who are looking at ways to develop new ultra-black materials.

Vantablack is the most famous of the ultra-black coatings. It was designed for defense and space sector applications, but has also appeared in architecture and art. It’s not the only one of its kind. MIT announced a new “blackest black” material in 2019.

Vantablack swallows everything it’s painted on

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The ocean research team used a spectrometer to measure light reflecting off the skin of fish pulled up from Monterey Bay and the Gulf of Mexico. These denizens of the deep live up to a mile below the ocean surface.

“The darkest species they found, a tiny anglerfish not much longer than a golf tee, soaks up so much light that almost none — 0.04% — bounces back to the eye,” Duke University said in a release on Thursday.

The scientists discovered differences between black fish and ultra-black fish by focusing on melanosomes, structures within cells that contain the pigment melanin.

“Other cold-blooded animals with normal black skin have tiny pearl-shaped melanosomes, while ultra-black ones are larger, more tic-tac-shaped,” Duke noted. The ultra-black structures are also more tightly packed. Computer modeling revealed these melanosomes “have the optimal geometry for swallowing light.”