![]() “I was a little flabbergasted to the platypus is biofluorescent,” says study lead author Paula Anich-especially since it’s already “such a unique animal.” In a recent study published in the journal Mammalia, scientists found that when illuminated by ultraviolet (UV) light-a spectrum of light not visible to human eyes-the pelts of platypuses give off a blue-green glow. ![]() Now, scientists have found yet another odd trait to add to the list: Fluorescent fur. They also have beaver-like tails and duck-like bills, the latter of which they use to sense prey while hunting at night with their eyes closed. Though mammals, these Australian natives lay eggs and sport venomous spines on their rear legs. “It’s another weird thing about this weird creature,” he says.The platypus is one of the planet’s strangest creatures on several counts. “Platypuses are just bloody difficult to study in the wild,” he explains, so perhaps fluorescence will allow researchers to detect these creatures more reliably.Įven if not, the glowing fur certainly adds to platypuses’ reputation for bizarreness. To see this feature in “all three of the major branches” of mammals - placental mammals, marsupials and monotremes - “is really indicative that it is an ancestral trait,” Anich says, and she’d like to see further research explore that possibility.Įvolutionary and ecological significance aside, Griffiths is excited to see if these findings can help biologists who study these shy, elusive animals. It may even be that the ancestor of all mammals glowed this way. “We don’t know as much about the nocturnal world,” she notes, so it’s possible there are lots of other fluorescent mammals awaiting discovery ( SN: 2/27/20). In fact, all known cases of fluorescence in mammals occur in species that are active at night or the low light of dawn and dusk, so Anich thinks the glow has something to do with darkness. Something similar is thought to occur in some nocturnal frogs ( SN: 4/3/17). ![]() “But essentially, they just don’t have any predators.” Instead, he thinks that the glow could be helping the usually solitary animals spot one another or communicate when they do meet up. “Maybe up in northern Queensland, they get chomped by a crocodile every now and then,” he says. Scientists have discovered platypuses also emit a cyan glow under ultraviolet light. The platypus’s distinctive bill contains electricity sensors for detecting prey underwater - and that’s not even the animal’s wildest feature. Anich’s hunch is that it helps camouflage the mostly nocturnal platypuses from nighttime predators that have UV vision, since, by absorbing some of the UV light, platypuses reflect less of it. What, if any, purpose this fluorescence may have remains a mystery. “Next time I’m out trapping, I’ll take a UV light with me and test it out.” “I’m curious to know myself now,” says Josh Griffiths, a wildlife ecologist with the environmental consulting company Cesar in Parkville, Australia, who has been working with platypuses for over a decade. It’s also likely that the living animals glow like their pelts, she says, as that’s been the case for all other known fluorescent mammals. Sure enough, it also glowed, the researchers report online October 15 in Mammalia.Īnich is confident that the glow isn’t an artifact of preservation, because several of the examined squirrel species and the echidna pelts didn’t fluoresce. To make sure the glow wasn’t something unusual about the Field Museum’s pelts, the team also examined a platypus specimen at the University of Nebraska State Museum in Lincoln. And they were incredibly, vividly fluorescent green and blue.” “So, we pulled the monotreme drawer, and we shined our light on the platypuses. “We were curious,” says Anich, of Northland College in Ashland, Wis. ![]() And it just so happened that the drawer of monotremes - an early branch of mammals that, today, is represented only by platypuses ( Ornithorhynchus anatinus) and echidnas - was the next one over from marsupials. After examining the museum’s preserved squirrel skins and finding that fluorescence occurred in at least three flying squirrel species, the team decided to examine pelts from marsupials too, as those were the only mammals previously known to possess fluorescent fur. A chance sighting of a fluorescent flying squirrel in the wild had led the researchers to the mammal collection at the Field Museum in Chicago. Platypuses’ dense, waterproof fur absorbs ultraviolet light and emits a blue-green glow, mammalogist Paula Spaeth Anich and colleagues discovered somewhat serendipitously. Now, researchers have found that this Australian oddity has another unexpected feature: It fluoresces under ultraviolet light. Between the electricity-sensing bill, venomous heel spurs and egg laying, the platypus was already one of the strangest mammals alive today ( SN: 5/8/08). ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |