2023-10-05 18:33:00
It’s a funny discovery that Australian researchers made. When they shone ultraviolet light on the 125 mammals in the collection, staff members at the Western Australian Museum noticed that the animals became fluorescent! They recount their incredible discovery in a new study published in the journal Royal Society Open Science.
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Fluorescence present in many mammals
Fluorescence is produced when a chemical, such as a protein, absorbs ultraviolet light and then emits a longer wavelength of light. This phenomenon was already known in species such as corals, sea turtles, frogs, and scorpions, but much less so in mammals.
It had already been proven that platypuses, wombats, flying squirrels and even dormice were biofluorescent. But this discovery proves that they are actually far from being the only ones. The 125 species of mammals examined under UV light thus emitted a green, blue, pink or white tint.
Among the examples cited in the study, the fur of the Museum’s polar bear turned white, as did the stripes of the zebra and the coat of the leopard. The inside of a red fox’s ears turned neon green. As for a bat, its wings turned white while the fur on its body turned pink.
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The study showed that fluorescence is present in half of mammal families, in almost all clades and in all 27 orders. The only mammal species lacking external fluorescence is the spinner dolphin, with only its teeth fluorescent.
“We found that fluorescence is widespread in mammalian taxa, write the researchers. Areas of fluorescence included light white fur, quills, whiskers, claws, teeth and some bare skin.”
Biofluorescence, an advantage for animals?
A question then arose for the study authors: Does this fluorescent glow confer an evolutionary advantage, or is it simply a byproduct of surface chemistry? “It remains unclear whether fluorescence plays a specific biological role in mammals,” thus write the researchers, while assuming that this characteristic would be of interest for the species concerned.
Mammals that are most active at night might thus use fluorescence to be more visible in low light conditions, for example to mate or defend their territory. Or conversely, these animals might absorb UV light instead of reflecting it, in order to better hide from predators and prey. Hypotheses that might explain why “fluorescence is the most common and intense among nocturnal species.”
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