When 19th-century Europeans first saw preserved skins of these strange-looking creatures, many experts thought the animal was a taxidermy hoax, with a duck’s beak sewn to a mole’s body, according to NHM. These oddball mammals have furry bodies flat and hairless beaver-like tails webbed feet (males also have spurs on their hind legs that are loaded with venom) and broad bills like a duck’s. Platypuses are semiaquatic and live in eastern Australia, and they are such a peculiar hodgepodge of body parts that they seem cobbled together from unrelated animals so perhaps fittingly, their scientific name, Ornithorhynchus anatinus, means bird-snouted flat-foot, according to London’s Natural History Museum (NHM). While testing the flying squirrel museum specimens for signs of biofluorescence, they decided to look at other mammal species in the same collections too, according to a statement. Kohler and her colleagues reported their results on Jan. Study co-author Allison Kohler, a doctoral candidate in the Texas A&M University Wildlife and Fisheries Department in College Station, Texas, had previously tested museum specimens of flying squirrels and found that all three North American species - the northern flying squirrel ( Glaucomys sabrinus), the southern flying squirrel ( Glaucomys volans) and the Humboldt’s flying squirrel ( Glaucomys oregonensis) - glowed bright pink in UV light. Prior to this discovery, biofluorescence was known in only two mammals: flying squirrels, which are placental mammals, and opossums, which are marsupials, according to the study, published online Oct. Related: Extreme life on Earth: 8 bizarre creatures But the trait is much rarer in mammals, and this is the first evidence of biofluorescence in egg-laying mammals, also known as monotremes, scientists reported in a new study. Under visible light a platypus’s extremely dense fur - which insulates and protects them in cold water - is a drab brown, so the trippy glow revealed under UV light on a stuffed museum specimen was a big surprise.īiofluorescence - absorbing and re-emitting light as a different color - is widespread in fish, amphibians, birds and reptiles. Duck-billed, egg-laying platypuses just got a little weirder: It turns out their fur glows green and blue under ultraviolet (UV) light.
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