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Porphyrin pigments of some deep-sea medusae

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 May 2009

Raymond Bonnett ,
Erica J. Head  and
Peter J. Herring
Raymond Bonnett
Affiliation:
Department of Chemistry, Queen Mary College, Mile End Road, London
Erica J. Head
Affiliation:
Department of Chemistry, Queen Mary College, Mile End Road, London
Peter J. Herring
Affiliation:
Institute of Oceanographic Sciences, Wormley, Surrey
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Extract

Many marine animals that live at depths greater than about 500 m are deeply coloured (generally red, brown, black or purple) even though there is little or no down-welling light in these regions (Clarke & Denton, 1962). The nature and function of many of these pigments are obscure. Partly, no doubt, because of the difficulty of provenance, there have been very few chemical and biochemical investigations on such pigments (see Crozier (1974) for a review of pigments in fishes). We report here an investigation of the pigments of meso- and bathypelagic medusae. The work was initiated following preliminary identification of protoporphyrin in Atolla wyvillei and Periphylla periphylla (Herring 1972): the present work confirms and considerably extends these observations (Head, 1976, M.Phil. Thesis, University of London).

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom , Volume 59 , Issue 3 , August 1979 , pp. 565 - 573
Copyright
Copyright © Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom 1979

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