Polarization of light reflected from the silvery exterior of the bleak,Alburnus alburnus

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

A method is described for measuring, for various angles of incidence, the polarization produced by reflexions from natural surfaces. This method was tested by measurements on matallic surfaces of known properties and then used to study reflexions from the silvery gill cover of the bleakAlburnus alburnus(L.). Althouth the reflecting surfaces of the gill cover are crystals of a dielectric guanine, there is no polarizing angle, and the reflecting properties of the gill cover resemble those of a sputtered aluminium mirror The biological significance of these results is briefly discussed.