Native to the Indo-Pacific region, the tiny disco clam (Ctenoides ales) gives a spectacular underwater light show that scares away predators and traps light-loving prey, a new study discovered.

The clam uses nanoparticles of silica to reflect light in the ocean depths. This clam is unique because the kind of control it displays when generating light is something that hasn't been observed before.

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Clams use tiny spheres of silica chemically similar to window glass. The disco clam has two fleshy mantle lips the color of a ripe mango.

It isolates the silica on one side of these lips, in the soft fold the clam uses to filter feed. The other side of the lip, which is reddish, absorbs light. The flashing colors take place when the mollusk rolls up and unfolds each side simultaneously, several times a second.

"We don't know of anything that is quite like the disco clam," Lindsey Dougherty, a biologist at the University of California Berkeley and the lead author of the study.

The study also discovered the clam has sulfur in its fleshy lips and tentacles. Scientists suspect the sulfur is converted into a distasteful substance to keep predators at bay.

Previously, scientists believed the bivalve was bioluminescent, an effect caused by light-emitting chemical reactions, thus giving them their characteristic glow.

To learn more about the disco clams, researchers placed the mollusc in an aquarium and used a floating styrofoam lid to imitate a looming predator. The styrofoam scared the clams that considered the thing its enemy.

The clams' flash rate jumped from 1.5 times a second to 2.5 flashes a second when the lid was nearby, researchers found.

The study was presented at the 2015 annual conference of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology in the United States. It was also published in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface.

Tagsdisco clam, Ctenoides ales, marine creatures, underwater light show, clams