“We shone the light, and they were also glowing, it confirmed the research.” “The first one we checked was the platypus obviously. “We borrowed it and turned off the lights in the collection and looked around for what was glowing and not glowing,” Dr Travouillon said. Palaeontologist and curator of Mammalogy at the Western Australian Museum, Kenny Travouillon, heard about the article and borrowed a UV light from that the arachnology department of the museum. Photo: ABC/Kenny Travouillon More glow in the dark surprises Kenny Travouillon rushed to check specimens. It was also reported by Linda Reinhold, a zoologist and amateur mycologist, in the Autumn/Winter 2020 edition of the Queensland Mycologist that a roadkill specimen of platypus in Queensland was seen to glow under UV light.

“We pulled the monotreme drawer and the platypuses fluoresced, and it was amazing,” she told ABC Radio Hobart. Photo: ABC/Mammaliaĭr Anich then decided to check some of the other specimens she had to hand. Platypuses have been found to glow green under UV light. She was alerted to a pink glow that squirrels exude under UV light by a colleague. “It’s hard to resist a platypus,” Dr Anich said.

Paula Anich is a North America squirrel researcher from the Center for Science and the Environment, Northland College in the USA, and co-author of the paper about biofluorescent platypuses that was published in the journal Mammalia.

Platypus glow in the dark