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> The description in Lewis sounds an awful lot like big squid. Some
> species of squid have bright, active bioluminescent organs which they
> can use to make impressive pulsing bands of light which would look
> like "underwater lightning" on a dark night.

They would have to be awfully close to the surface for anyone to see it
above water. Do squid ever hang around the surface?

To me it sounds more like chemiluminescent bacteria or protozoans who are
actually triggering luminscence in their neighbors in some kind of chain
reaction (I have no idea why they might do this, but they still might). At the
moment we know of organisms that give off light, and organisms that have
light receptors that influence biochemical changes (in bacteria, even, these
are far more general than vision systems), but nobody has yet found an
organism that transmits signals between cells by light. There are a few
people looking, but nothing convincing so far.

Ken Muldrew.

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