Colorless Beauty: 10 Transparent Animals That Are Unbelievably Stunning

Goes by many names like glass shrimp, grass shrimp, and feeder shrimp, here you are looking at a transparent shrimp of the ocean. This shrimp lives in both freshwater and brackish water where it feeds on plankton, algae, detritus, and leftover food. Because they are transparent, you can see the food particles of what they eat through their body easily. Ghost shrimps are excellent scavengers, and they make a great addition to the personal aquarium at home. In nature, they are also great food sources for both freshwater and saltwater fish of many types.

Looks more like some kind of vitreous earthworms than fish, European eel aka glass eel is transparent during their juvenile stage. Glass eels refer to the intermediary stage in the eel’s complex life history between their early and late stage. This species of eel travels with the Gulf Stream across the Atlantic Ocean before they reach the coasts of Europe. These eels propel themselves over wet grass and dig through wet sand to reach upstream headwaters and ponds. Not to mention they can live up to 150 years, this creature does not need color to be cool and long living.

With a soft and gelatinous body that we can see through, glass octopus is also among the cool-looking transparent animals. This stunning creature lives worldwide in tropical and subtropical seas, and they have four pairs of arms. One more thing, the octopus has strange rectangular eyes on stalks that you can see through its transparent body. That is not all, even their digestive gland is also visible as well. Plus with their bluish blood, this glass octopus is definitely one of a kind when it comes to the beauty of nature.

Also known as the crocodile icefish due to the shape of their snout, icefish is one of the transparent animals. The icefish has an elongated and tapered body, it lacks scales and has thin vascularised skin. The interesting thing about these transparent fish is that they don’t have hemoglobin; therefore, they have whitish almost transparent blood. On top of that, they don’t have swim bladders so they spend much of their lives on the ocean bottom. Transparent body with transparent blood, a fascinating creature to see indeed.

This jellyfish is not only transparent but also immortal, yes you saw it right, this jellyfish can live forever. The only way that this jelly dies is when another creature eats it or if a disease strikes it. Since it is transparent, you can easily see its bright red stomach in a cruciform shape in cross-section. The young version of them has only 8 tentacles, while the adult specimens have between 80 to 90 tentacles. The immortal jellyfish originates in the Pacific, but you can find them all over the world.

Surgeonfish is a close family member of Blue Tangs, Dory from Finding Nemo. The spine of this fish species is dangerously sharp, and it may injure anyone who carelessly handles them. This species has 3 color phases of its life, and the juvenile surgeonfish is transparent. The color will appear when they become adults. This tropical reef fish is popular in the aquarium and as bait, but not as food because of the strong odor. Another reason to not consume them is that there is a chance of getting ciguatera poisoning which is quite dangerous.

Not all transparent animals live in the water, the perfect example of transparent land animals is the Pharaoh ant. The coloration of this ant species is yellow or light brown, almost transparent. In spite of being transparent, they are more well known for being a major indoor nuisance pest, especially in hospitals. Back to their transparent bodies, their abdomen displays the color of any liquid they consume. That means these Pharaoh ants are not only transparent but also capable of showing different colors on their bodies. Also, people consider them to be dangerous since they carry and transmit a number of dangerous pathogens to people and pets. In hospitals, they contaminate the wounds of the patients. At home, they contaminate food and introduce serious diseases to the family. Interesting to look, at but not nice to have or see.

The unique thing about this creature is that everyone loves to swim in large groups, and they are all transparent. The salps propel and move as the water pumps in and out of the openings of their bodies. In case you wonder, they also have gills and hearts as they are closely related to marine vertebrates like fish. Since they are asexual, these creatures are capable of producing their own offspring to form massive chains. Salpa Maxima lives in cold waters, and their food mainly consists of algae and phytoplankton.

Such a marvelous name to call the extremely small swimming sea slugs of the Arctic Ocean like these ones right here. The sea angels are gelatinous and mostly transparent, and they love to swim in warmer waters. The cute thing about them is the way they flutter through the water as they feed at the same time. Sea angels are carnivorous, and they feed on pteropods known as the Thecosmata. Sometimes they can be ambush predators who sit and wait for the prey to come. Since they are fully transparent with pedal wings, calling them sea angels is simply the best option.

Looking cute and all, this transparent creature is known as comb jelly which is one of the voracious predators. The sea gooseberry has two tentacles that can be 20 times longer than its body which it uses to catch prey. It feeds on eggs, larvae, small mollusks, arthropods, and pretty much anything its tentacles can get hold of. Apart from the transparent color, the sea gooseberry is a hermaphrodite which means it possesses both male and female genitalia. You can find them in almost every ocean in the world, and they inhabit shallow waters.

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