Some Frogs Glow in the Dark and Others Don’t! Why Is This?

Amaze Lab

Bioluminescence is the trait of some of our planet’s creatures to glow in the dark. We've seen it in places like Puerto Rico’s bioluminescent bay, fireflies, jellyfish, even some mushrooms. But now experts say that more recently they’ve discovered the trait in many frog species as well.

Transcript

00:00bioluminescence it's the trait of some of our planet's creatures that lets them glow in the

00:08dark we've seen it in places like puerto rico's bioluminescent bay fireflies jellyfish even some

00:14mushrooms but now experts say that more recently they've discovered the trait in many frog species

00:19as well the find was first made only back in 2017 with researchers finding that the glowing was

00:24happening only at twilight now after years of research biologists with florida state university

00:29say this is a much more momentous find than initially thought as all 151 species from south

00:35america that were studied including some 528 individual frogs all emit some level of light

00:41what's even crazier the fluorescence emitted by these frogs seems to be completely different from other

00:46bioluminescent creatures the frogs all elicit a glow when exposed to wavelengths of light most similar

00:50to twilight what's more they gave off light that would be most easily seen by the frog's eyes that

00:55is to say green as frogs have more photoreceptors that can pick up that color meaning the frogs seem

01:00to be communicating with one another in some way using a light emitted from their own bodies

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