A glowing frog sounds like something one might find in a toy store bargain bin but for the first tim
A glowing frog sounds like something one might find in a toy store bargain bin but for the first time, researchers have discovered that a species of frog—the South American polka dot tree frog—glows blue-green under ultraviolet light.From the Nature.com Article:The ability to absorb light at short wavelengths and re-emit it at longer wavelengths is called fluorescence, and is rare in terrestrial animals. Until now, it was unheard of in amphibians. Researchers also report that the polka dot tree frog uses fluorescent molecules totally unlike those found in other animals. The team published the find on 13 March in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.Unlike bioluminescence, in which organisms give off light even in total darkness, in fluorescence, light has to be absorbed by the organism before it can glow. Fluorescence is fairly common in the oceans but is rare on land—only parrots and some scorpions were previously known to fluoresce. Interestingly, the molecules responsible for fluorescence in these frogs are more closely related to fluorescent molecules found in plants than in other known fluorescing animals. There is also the question of why the polka dot tree frog evolved the ability to fluoresce in the first place. One key to answering this is to determine whether the frogs can see their own fluorescence. The newly described fluorescent molecules emit a surprising amount of light, providing about 18% as much visible light as a full Moon — enough for a related species of frog to see by. Almost nothing is known about the polka dot tree frog’s visual system or photoreceptors, so Taboada plans to study these to determine whether the frogs can see their own fluorescence.This discovery raises the possibility of more species exhibiting similar traits. Dr. Julián Faivovich, the co-author of the study, believes other tree frogs with translucent skin like the polka dot tree frog’s might be good candidates for future research on fluorescence. Read more on this flashy fog at Nature.com here. -- source link
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