The menial platypus continues to surprise us . One of only five mammals that put eggs , the Australian duck - billed animate being can now lend biofluorescent pelt to its curious inherited makeup . When exposed to ultraviolet radiation ( UV ) light , the platypus ' brown fur reverse a bright green - blue . The discovery is reported in the journalMammalia .
member of the same research mathematical group discovered last year that flight squirrels arebubble - gum pinkunder ultraviolet radiation light . researcher were study lichens at nighttime when they discovered flee squirrel glowing under their UV flannel mullein . Specimens at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago confirmed this too . move by curiosity , the researchers shone a ultraviolet radiation spark on platypus specimen too and found they get going glowing .
“ It was a mix of serendipity and rarity that lead us to shine a UV light on the platypuses at the Field Museum , ” lead author Professor Paula Spaeth Anich , from Northland College , say in astatement . “ But we were also interested in see how cryptical in the mammalian Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree the trait of biofluorescent fur went . It ’s think that monotremes branched off the marsupial - placental bloodline more than 150 million years ago . So , it was challenging to see that brute that were such distant relatives also had biofluorescent pelt . ”
The team looked at three museum specimen , a manful and female from the Field Museum as well as a 2d manly specimen from the University of Nebraska State Museum . They found the pelt of the platypus ingest UV light and re - emits it in wavelengths of light we can see , making it fluoresce . The fluorescence was strong on the beast stomach . The pattern is not sexually dimorphic , meaning both males and female glow in the same place and intensity .
The third mammalian that we sleep with to possess biofluorescence is the possum . All three species are active at crepuscle , dawning , and during the nighttime , so this special power may have something to do with being visible to other members of its species when it ’s dark .
The researchers conceive that the ability of the platypus to bioflouresce could be an version against predators who are sensitive to ultraviolet illumination light . " However , theater of operations - based research will be crucial to document Ornithorhynchus anatinus biofluorescence and its ecological function in wild animals , " they compose .
