Foxfungus

   

Bioluminescence is the property of a living organism to produce and emit light.

Bioluminescent organisms are usually found in the ocean environments, but they are also found on terrestrial environments.

The colour of the light emitted by the organism depends on their chemical properties

In the case of fungi, the luminescence comes from the enzyme, luciferase.

The [green] light emits when luciferans is catalysed by the enzyme luciferase, in the presence of oxygen.

During the chemical reaction, several unstable intermediate products are released as excess energy that makes them visible as light.

Foxfire Fungus 

Of about 120,000 described fungi species (out of an estimated 2.2 to 3.8 million), around 100 are known to be bioluminescent or capable of emitting light.

                                                Electric Mushrooms, Meghalya India 

“Electric mushrooms”, in West Jaintia Hills District in Meghalaya. It was a drizzly night and a local person guided a team of experts to a bamboo forest, which is part of a community forest.

They were asked them to switch off their torches. A minute later, the group was awestruck by what they saw: in the midst of the darkness an eerie green glow emerged from dead bamboo sticks that were smothered in tiny mushrooms. The fungus emits its own light—a phenomenon known as bioluminescence.

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