Scientists Finding Lots of Mammals Glow Under UV Light
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Earlier this year, scientists published a paper outlining how platypuses exhibit biofluorescence under ultraviolet (UV) light. That is, how the duck-billed mammals are able to glow like a black-light poster when lit up with the invisible light. Now, more reports of other mammals glowing under UV light are beginning to emerge. Although when it comes to understanding why they do so, it seems everyone’s still in the dark.
After platypus was shown to glow under UV light, couldn’t resist trying bilbies. their ears and tails shine bright like a diamond! #bilby#uvpic.twitter.com/wL82RDdFYb Dr Kenny Travouillon (@TravouillonK) November 3, 2020
Insolite : le plus grand animal du monde découvert près de l Australie
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How were the Top 10 chosen?
An international committee of experts, chaired by Janine N. Caira of the University of Connecticut, selected the top 10 new species for this year s list. Nominations were invited through the species.asu.edu Web site and also generated by institute staff and committee members.
The Caira committee had complete freedom in making its choices and developing its own criteria, from unique attributes or surprising facts about the species to peculiar names.
This year s committee members included Philippe Bouchet, French National Museum of Natural History and International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature; Daphne G. Fautin, Natural History Museum and Biodiversity Research Center, University of Kansas; Mary Liz Jameson, Wichita State University; Peter Kämpfer, International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology, and Institut für Angewandte Mikrobiologie, Justus-Liebig-Universität Giessen; Niels Peder Kristensen, Zoologisk Museum, University o
More Mammals Are Hiding Their Secret Glow
First it was platypuses. Now we may be dealing with glowing Tasmanian devils, echidnas and wombats.
Stuffed bare-nosed wombats fluoresce under a black light at the Western Australia Museum. Credit.Western Australia Museum
By Cara Giaimo
Were platypuses just the beginning?
In October, researchers reported that the already perplexing animals fluoresce a psychedelic blue-green color under black light. The species joined a short list of mammals known to do this, including opossums and flying squirrels.
Since the study came out, others have begun their own investigations, mostly in Australian mammals. Although results are preliminary, the findings suggest we may have to book a larger venue for the mammal rave.
Last modified on Mon 21 Dec 2020 09.46 EST
Dr Kenny Travouillon turned off the lights and headed straight for the shelf holding the stuffed platypus, armed with an ultraviolet torch to test something out. Would the monotreme glow?
“All the platypuses were glowing,” says Travouillon, the mammals curator at the Western Australian Museum in Perth. “We went through with other mammals and we found they were glowing too.”
The museum’s stuffed mammal collection has about 65,000 specimens of roughly 800 different species, including all of Australia’s many marvellous and occasionally oddball animals.
Bare-nosed Wombats under ultraviolet light. Photograph: Western Australian Museum
Under the UV light, creatures including bilbies, bandicoots, wombats, flying foxes, microbats, Tasmanian devils and echidnas all took on a distinct disco-like glow. Kangaroos, though, were “rather disappointing”.
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