An intravital-information imaging apparatus includes light sources (10, 20) for irradiating a living body with light, and acoustic-wave detectors (15, 25) that detect acoustic waves generated from a light absorber having absorbed part of energy of the light from the light sources, the light absorber existing in the living body. Furthermore, the intravital-information imaging apparatus includes signal processors (16, 26) that calculate information representing a distribution of optical characteristic values of the living body using sound pressures of the acoustic waves generated from the light absorber.
