Any time I catch a scorpion or a spider or a millipede and I have my black light, they’re bright blue,” said Pynne.įinding all of these glowing animals naturally leads to the question – why do they glow? Unfortunately, there is no clear answer from scientists yet. “We have known for a long time that arthropods fluoresced. Other known animals that glow under UV light are the platypus, spiders, some birds and more. And I’m thinking, of course my strange little animals do this,” said Pynne. “And it turned out, pocket gophers, flying squirrels and opossums were the only animal specimens that fluoresced. ![]() While a student at UGA Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources, Pynne focused his research on pocket gophers, so it was natural for him to test their biofluorescence too. So, I said, ‘Well, what else do we have?'” “We tested it on the flying squirrels we had, and sure enough, it worked. ![]() “A bunch of people, myself included, were curious about other animals,” said study lead author PhD candidate J.T. The research was inspired by flying squirrels and opossums, which were already known to glow under ultraviolet light. In a new study published in the journal The American Midland Naturalist, researchers have made a surprising discovery about pocket gophers – they glow under ultraviolet light. They’re small, common rodents that live in underground burrows made of sandy soils.
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