Flying squirrels glow in the dark: why do they need such abilities

Not so long ago, scientists were able to find out that flying squirrels have not only an amazing ability for planning flights, but can also glow pink under ultraviolet light.

This discovery was made by accident. Biologist D. Martin conducted research in one of the forests and used an ultraviolet flashlight to better see the forest inhabitants at night. A squirrel flying from branch to branch fell into the range of the lantern, and Martin saw a bright pink-purple glow.

After an unexpected discovery, the biologist, along with his colleagues, decided to find out how widespread this feature is among flying squirrels and other squirrel representatives. It turned out that only three flying squirrels that live in North America have the ability to glow in ultraviolet light - the northern flying squirrel, the southern flying squirrel and the Humboldt flying squirrel.

It should be noted that the ability to fluoresce among mammals is extremely rare. In addition to the recently discovered flying squirrels, only possums have this gift. Therefore, scientists were extremely surprised and began to look for the reasons for such an unusual talent for squirrels. The most likely seems to be the protective function of the glow mechanism. The fact is that American flying squirrels are twilight and nocturnal animals that are active at the same time as owls - one of the enemies of squirrels. Owls themselves also fluoresce in the dark, so scientists have suggested that squirrels thus try to be like owls and not cause interest in birds of prey. But it is possible that such a glow is used by proteins as communicative signals in order to be noticeable to representatives of their own species at dusk.

But this is not the only question that scientists will have to answer after an unexpected discovery. Biologists are trying to figure out how proteins manage to fluoresce. Most likely, the flying squirrel organism independently produces the necessary substances, but does not receive them with food, but it will only be possible to finally answer this question after additional studies.