20 Nov 2023

What we don't know about glow-in-the-dark animals

From Afternoons, 1:40 pm on 20 November 2023

If a passel of possums - a group of possums - went to a disco, they would glow in shocking fluorescent blues and pinks.

Under UV, their fur absorbs the light and re-emits bright colours.

And they are not the only mammals to glow in the dark. Polar bears, cats, lions and flying squirrels have all been shown the same quality according to a paper published in the Royal Society Open Science Journal last month. 

It's not a new discovery, but in recent years has attracted more attention.

Australian zoologist Linda Reinhold has been studying fluorescence in mammals using road kill.

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