The garden dormouse, a small European rodent species, has joined a growing list of animals known to display photoluminescence – but the reason for the phenomenon is a mystery.
Every year scientists discover more photoluminescence in nature. You are probably familiar with glowing plankton at sea, but photoluminescence also appears in mammals and why they glow under the right light is often a mystery to science.
If you’ve bought your kid a UV light to find crystals or scorpions out in the wild, now add doormice, the duck-billed platypus (Ornithorhyncus anatinus), squirrels springhare’s to your list.
A new study on the European garden dormouse, animals who probably spend their lives trying not to be seen, found they can glow. Researchers looked at the feet and nose of the hibernating dormouse: these cute bodyparts displayed greenish-blue photoluminescence under UV light through a yellow filter, while the fur was bright red.
Dormice have been found to glow
The live animal version of garden dormice showed vivid red colouring compared to deceased museum specimens. No animals were hurt in the study.
Why mammal species glow is not known, but various explanations have been offered: for the duck-billed platypus it could be part of interspecies interactions, while in springhares, the unusual patchy appearance of their photoluminescence suggests it could be used as camouflage. As for the dormice, no one knows for sure.
Garden dormice glow under UV light
It is possible that the photoluminescence found in rodents is a by-product of something they eat. It’s also not clear if the dormice can perceive these colours themselves — humans certainly can’t without the help of an artificial source of UV light.
“There is a whole world we cannot see,” says Grette Nummert, who initiated the study at the Tallin Zoo in Estonia: “Animals perceive the world differently from us.”
Author: Karin Kloosterman
Karin Kloosterman is an award-winning journalist, innovation strategist, and founder of Green Prophet, one of the Middle East’s pioneering sustainability platforms. She has ranked in the Top 10 of Verizon innovation competitions, participated in NASA-linked challenges, and spoken worldwide on climate, food security, and future resilience. With an IoT technology patent, features in Canada’s National Post, and leadership inside teams building next-generation agricultural and planetary systems — including Mars-farming concepts — Karin operates at the intersection of storytelling, science, and systems change. She doesn’t report on the future – she helps design it. Reach out directly to [email protected]
