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Scientists at James Cook University have been working to find out why certain creatures shine under UV light. The PLOS One publication features work headed by JCU researcher Linda Reinhold. She claimed that mammal fur’s photoluminescence is rather typical.
Rats are photoluminescent, meaning they glow when exposed to ultraviolet, violet, or blue light, like bandicoots, possums, bats, tree-kangaroos, and many other animals in Australia and around the world.
Researchers wanted to find luminophores—molecules or groups of molecules—in Australian mammal fur that were causing photoluminescence, especially pink photoluminesence.
The scientists removed roadkill fur and ran high-performance liquid chromatography on it.
Pink, yellow, blue, and/or white colors are prominently displayed by the fur of the Australian northern long-nosed and northern brown bandicoots, which exhibits significant photoluminescence. Researchers sought to determine whether the luminophores found in bandicoot fur were shared across several other species.
Researchers therefore contrasted the two bandicoots’ findings with those of the Lumholtz’s tree-kangaroo, the northern quoll, the coppery brushtail possum, the pale field rat, and the platypus—all of which exhibit varying forms of photoluminescence.
The researchers found porphyrin derivatives of the chemical molecule porphyrin that allow bandicoots, quolls, and possums to shine brilliant pink in UV light and verified metabolites of the amino acid tryptophan.
Surprisingly, scientists discovered a contributing factor to the hue of coppery brushtail possum fur—not photoluminescent, but a rich purple hue in white light—a match for the chemical Indigo, which is also taken from plants as a dye.
The research on possum chemistry also offers new hope for determining the source of the strange fur color of species including the purple-necked rock-wallaby.
According to researchers, the study was the first report since 1971 to examine the photoluminescent fur chemistry of Australian mammals.
Sources:
Linda M. Reinhold et al. (2025). Luminophores in the fur of seven Australian Wet Tropics mammals, PLOS One. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0320432
Why some mammals glow under ultraviolet light? https://phys.org/news/2025-05-mammals-ultraviolet.html
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