A blue-green glow adds to platypuses’ long list of bizarre features

Between the electricity-sensing bill, venomous heel spurs and egg laying, the platypus was already one of the strangest mammals alive today (SN: 5/8/08).

Now, researchers have found that this Australian oddity has another unexpected feature: It fluoresces under ultraviolet light.

Platypuses’ dense, waterproof fur absorbs ultraviolet light and emits a blue-green glow, mammalogist Paula Spaeth Anich and colleagues discovered somewhat serendipitously.

A chance sighting of a fluorescent flying squirrel in the wild had led the researchers to the mammal collection at the Field Museum in Chicago.

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GODDARD PHOTOGRAPHY

The platypus’s distinctive bill contains electricity sensors for detecting prey underwater — and that’s not even the animal’s wildest feature.

Scientists have discovered platypuses also emit a cyan glow under ultraviolet light.

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JONATHAN MARTIN/NORTHLAND COLLEGE

This platypus specimen glows blue-green under ultraviolet light.

Biologists are still pondering what function, if any, this fluorescence has.

Source / Image Courtesy

Scientists accidentally discover biofluorescent platypus glow in the dark

Australian mammals and marsupials including wombats and platypus 'glow in the dark' under ultraviolet light, according to a team of scientists.

Platypus Hunts with "Sixth Sense"

With the tail of a beaver, and a bill like a duck's, the platypus is a real ungainly creature. But there's more to this strange killer than meets the eye.