Yahoo – AFP,
March 17, 2017
The first naturally fluorescent frog was discovered recently in Argentina -- almost by chance, a member of the team of researchers told AFP Thursday.
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| Argentine and Brazilian scientists at the Bernardino Rivadaiva Natural Sciences Museum discovered the first naturally fluorescent frog almost by accident |
The first naturally fluorescent frog was discovered recently in Argentina -- almost by chance, a member of the team of researchers told AFP Thursday.
Argentine
and Brazilian scientists at the Bernardino Rivadaiva Natural Sciences Museum
made the discovery while studying the metabolic origin of pigments in a
tree-frog species common to South America.
Under
normal light the frog's translucent skin is a muted yellowish-brown color with
red dots, but when the scientists shone an ultraviolet light on it, it turned a
celestial green.
According
to one of them, Carlos Taboada, the case is "the first scientific record
of a fluorescent frog."
"We
were very excited," said his fellow researcher Julian Faivovich. "It
was quite disconcerting."
He said the
discovery "radically modifies what is known about fluorescence in
terrestrial environments, allowing the discovery of new fluorescent compounds
that may have scientific or technological applications."
It also
"generates new questions about visual communication in amphibians,"
he said.
The team
studied some 200 more examples to ensure the phenomenon was not due to the
frog's captivity, and detected the fluorescent properties in all the specimens.
Maria
Lagorio -- an independent researcher and expert in fluorescence, who the
research team contacted after the discovery -- told AFP that the trait is
common in aquatic species and seen in some insects, "but has never been
scientifically reported in amphibians."
The finding
was recently published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
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