Researchers have found a new species of frog that can illuminate itself. This green colored polka dotted frog was found at Amazon basin near Argentina. This frog glows with neon green lights when they were exposed to the Ultraviolet(UV) light. Scientists declared this as the first amphibian in the world which can glow in dark.
This ability of emitting light is known as fluorescence. This kind of properties could be seen in several sea creatures such as corals, sea turtles, sharks and in some fishes. Not only sea creatures ability to emit different colors has been observed even in some land creatures too but, it is the first time scientists found this ability in an amphibian. Their findings were first published in the journal of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences(PNAS).
Scientists found the sign of fluorescent while studying the skin pigments of polka-dot tree frogs collected from Santa Fe, Argentina. Lead researcher of this study and a herpetologist from University of Buenos, Aires Julián Faivovich wrote in his journal,“For some things we were planning on doing, we had to illuminate the frog tissues with UV light. Then we realized the whole frog was fluorescing”.
According to I4U News, the frog normally has a pale yellow colored skin but, in the dark when researchers pointed a black light(UV) beam towards the frog they have found something dramatic. During the investigation, researchers found the evidence of three molecules, hyloin-L1, hyloin-L2 and hyloin-G1 that are responsible for the vivid glow.
Those molecules were found in the lymph tissue and skin glands of the frog. Researchers have also found that each molecule has a ring and a hydrocarbon chain, and it can enhance the brightness of the frog by 19 to 30 percent. The frog is not more than one inch in size but it had raised some bigger questions. One of the biggest questions is why the frog is fluorescent. However, it is quite different from bioluminescence.
The main difference between bioluminescence and fluorescence is, creatures with fluorescence first absorb the light then re-emit it in different shades. But, creatures with bio-luminescence don’t have to absorb any light, they can produce it from their body. Researchers are planning to collect more frog species from that area to check other species have the same properties or not.
