If you walk through a forest at night, you can only see darkness and shadows, and perhaps the deceptive view of trees against the sky. But if you were a shalamander immersed in leaf litter, under the right lighting conditions, you might see something completely different: leaves shining in red shadows, and your fellow amphibians shining in brilliant green.
Biofluorescence – in which animals emit fluorescent glare after absorbing waves of energy-rich light – appears to be widespread among most, if not all, marine , according to a new study published in the journal Scientific Reports. Previously, only one species of salamander and three species of frog were known for biofluoresce.
“I do fieldwork, so I’m out there catching amphibian species, and I think, ‘huh, I wonder if this is flowering,'” Jennifer said. Y. Lamb, associate professor of biology at St. Cloud State University in Minnesota. She and co-author Matthew P. Davis, an assistant professor at the university, gathered representatives from eight of the 10 salamander families, five frog families, and one family of caecelians, a type of limbless amphibian. They took each criterion to an energetic blue light and then looked through yellow sieves to see if and how they shone.
“One of the first salamanders we tested was an Eastern tiger salamander. We saw it bloom very clearly, and that’s the kind that made us get caught, ”Lamb tells Mental Floss. “We started [to look] over the diversity of salamander, [and asked ourselves], ‘Okay, how many species do we see inside salamanders that biofluoresce?’ When we started noticing, ‘hey, it’s a lot of them! ‘, The question came,’ can he make frogs? ‘Then we looked at someone who was related to frogs, the caecelians -‘ will they do it? ‘ And biofluorescence in shape or fashion seemed to be present in all of these sequences. ”
The various amphibians bloomed in unique patterns according to the color and markings of their skin as seen under normal white light. Some shine in blotches, others in stripes. Move the bones of a few animals. Lamb was surprised to see that the bells of salamanders, which were usually red or orange under white light, shone brighter than their backs after being exposed to blue light.
“Many of these newts have changed what we call aposematic, or warning colors. When a predator is in danger, they basically oppose their bodies to reveal their bells as a warning, ”says Lamb. “So it raises the question that if these mushrooms are also dual-fuel, some of their predators may see biofuels.”
The researchers expect their study to serve as a roadmap for further exploration of the potential. “Now that we know that this miracle is in amphibians, there are many different types of interesting claims that future researchers could turn to,” Davis tells Mental Floss. For example, no-one still knows what kind of equipment will allow amphibians to be bi-fuel: In some groups it may be a molecule or a color-based fertilizer; in others, it may be something in their mucus.
Scientists also do not know how different amphibians might see their own biofluorescence. Salamanders, frogs, and caecelians are sensitive to green light-sensitive eye cells, suggesting that they may have developed green evolution and the ability to see at the same time, although more research is needed on the contrary.
“We have to be careful not to fall into the trap of just seeing the world through our own eyes,” Lamb says. “Human vision is transmitted to a specific set of waves, and that is not true across all animal diversity. And that may not be the case for these amphibians. “
Finally, researchers are debating what purpose biofluorescence serves. In other animals, scientists have said it may participate in communication, mock-up, or companion selection. Amphibians can use biofluorescence to find each other in thick leaf litter.
“We hope this study will encourage researchers to start looking at broader biofluorescence across the different types of amphibian lines they can work with, so that we can fill the gaps in knowledge,” Davis says.
“There is still a lot to learn about animal groups that we think we know,” he said. “There are still many interesting things to be discovered that will help us reconsider life history and biology, and that could lead us to new study directions. ”