Surreal footage captured off the coast of California shows a pod of 'glowing' dolphins swimming in dark water. Photographer Patrick Coyne was lucky enough to film the extraordinary sight of the dolphins swimming through bioluminescent algae and shared it on social media, where the video has gone viral.
While sharing the footage on Instagram, Mr Coyne explained that he first came across the phenomenon of bioluminescence - or the production of light by a living organism - on a Netflix show, which inspired him to attempt photographing it. On Thursday - which he described as "one of the most magical nights" of his life, he went on a nightly tour off the coast of Newport Beach and managed to capture the rare footage himself.
"Capt. Ryan @lawofthelandnsea of @newportcoastaladventure invited me along to capture rare video of Dolphins swimming in bioluminescence," he wrote while sharing the video. "The first time I saw this actually filmed was a few months back while watching a Night on Earth documentary on Netflix. The second I saw that footage it became a dream of mine to one day capture something similar and that's exactly what we did."
According to the Daily Mail, the light show was caused by the dolphins disturbing the bioluminescent algae - tiny organisms that glow as a fear response.
Watch the dolphins below:
Since being shared online on Friday, the video has collected over 60,000 views on Instagram, along with hundreds of amazed comments.
"This may be the most beautiful video on the internet. Ever," wrote one person in the comments section.
"Oh wow, this is insane," said another.
According to Mr Coyne, filming the footage was a challenging task as conditions have to be "absolutely perfect for the bioluminescence to show up" and finding animals in pitch dark is "ridiculously hard".
What do you think of the video? Let us know using the comments section.
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