Science Vs - Platypuses Get a Glow Up

Episode Date: November 5, 2020

The eccentric platypus has always turned heads, and now it’s got something else up its sleeve. We talked with mammalogist Dr. Paula Anich to get the scoop. Here’s a link to our transcript: https://bit.ly/34YfHR4 This episode was produced by Nick DelRose with help from Wendy Zukerman, Rose Rimler, Michelle Dang, and Hannah Harris Green. We’re edited by Blythe Terrell. Mix and sound design by Bumi Hidaka. Music written by Peter Leonard. And special thanks to the Zukerman family and Joseph Lavelle Wilson. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm Wendy Zuckerman, and you're listening to Science Versus from Gimlet. There's a lot going on right now. And when we heard this science news story, we just thought it's the perfect thing that you might need. Seems like there's a global need to talk about platypuses right now. Yeah, I hear that. I hear that. This is Dr Paula Anik. She studies mammals at Northland College in Wisconsin. And her team has just made a very cool discovery.

That the egg-laying, duck-billed platypus has fur that can glow. And the story of how Paula's team worked this out is one hell of a eureka moment. It all started with a quest that had nothing to do with platypuses. Paula's colleague was walking in the woods in northern Wisconsin, looking for lichen using this special flashlight that beams UV light. And he noticed that when his beam accidentally landed on a flying squirrel, the flying squirrel looked bright pink. Bright pink. Bright pink. I mean, it's been described as rosé pink or bubblegum pink. This shock of pink fur in an otherwise poo-brown squirrel was startling. The fur was biofluorescing.

That means that when UV light is beamed on it, the light bounces off the fur in this awesome way, so it ends up looking pink. And other animals do this biofluorescing thing too, like some kinds of fish and coral. But to see this going on in a squirrel, that was weird. When Paula's colleague got back from his walk, he told his fellow nerds about what he saw. And to be sure that this critter in the woods wasn't just a freak, Paula's team checked other flying squirrels. And sure enough, they glowed too. We had worked with flying squirrels for years. We had studied different aspects of flying squirrels to learn something so remarkable about a species that we thought

we knew so well. OK, now the hard work has to begin. Paula and her team wondered if there were any other secretly glowing mammals out there. So they packed a car full of snacks, cookies and apples, and drove for hours to the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. And here's what they did. They made their way into the bowels of the museum. It looks so much like a library,

except instead of stacks of books, they're stacks of big metal cabinets with solid doors. They turned off the lights and using headlamps, made their way through the cabinets. And we went down to the end of the row up against a wall, case after case of drawers of specimens. We're doing all of this in the dark with headlamps to try to read the small labels on the cases. And the small label they're looking for? The duck-billed platypus. The team wanted to check if the platypus in particular glowed under UV light, because it's such a different kind of mammal to the squirrel. So if the platypus glowed, then that might be a sign that other mammals might glow too.

And we pulled that drawer just to see, and we shone, shone, shined the light on the specimens. And what had appeared brown in our headlamps all of a sudden popped in this blue and cyan color. We took a photograph that was just what the platypus looked like under ultraviolet light. And in that picture, you can really see some blues and greens. Oh, wow. I just got got I just went into your paper to see the image the blueness it almost looks kind of like a starry night like just as dusk is falling it's beautiful. It is. You could almost imagine the stars like glistening on the on the platypus. Yeah and like a nice indigo sky overhead. Right? Wow.

So what did you guys think once you saw that? I mean, I think we were delighted, but we were also flabbergasted. Seeing this platypus glow, it made the penny drop. This was the moment when I realized that this is a trait that is not that unique in a mammal. Maybe a lot of mammals are doing this. In several more trips to the Field Museum, the team has tested more and more mammals. And sure enough, this glowing thing is popping up more and more, particularly among mammals that are active in twilight or at night when moonlight could be shining on their fur.

Paula thinks mammals might be using this superpower as a sexy thing to attract mates, or perhaps it's a code between friends, or maybe even a cloak to avoid becoming someone else's dinner. But it's all new to science and just completely exciting. In this time that we're in, it's very lovely to imagine just this unseen world of beautiful glowing color. It is. I think it's also wonderful to realize there is still so much that is unknown about nature. And I think it's wonderful to imagine a hidden world at night. That's Science Versus. And if you want to learn more about creatures lighting up,

then check out every Little Things episode, Why is the Ocean Glowing? And this episode was produced by Nick Del Rose and the rest of the Science Versus gang. It's mixed by Bumi Hidaka. For full credits and our transcript, with all the citations, head over to our show notes. I'm Wendy Zuckerman. Back to you next time.