OHIO – The Toledo zoo has discovered something that has been overlooked by scientists for years, biofluorescence in Tazmanian Devils.
Biofluorescence phenomenon by which a living organism absorbs light and reemits it as a different color. This gives the animal a glow that sometimes helps attract prey or other natural skills.
According to the Toledo Zoo, “In the case of the Tasmanian devil, the skin around their snout, eyes, and inner ear absorbs ultraviolet light (a type of light that is naturally abundant, yet invisible to humans) and reemits it as blue, visible light. It is unclear whether this instance of biofluorescence serves any ecological purpose or is simply happenstance.”
This isn’t the first mammal that has been discovered to have this ability, other mammals in the native area of the Devil, the Platypus, wombat in Australia also have this ability. It doesn’t stop there in Ohio the common native Virginia Opossums, and Southern Flying Squirrels also have this ability.
It is not known yet why some of these animals have this ability but now that the information is out there they can discover more.
