In Argentina, researches came across one of the highly interesting and quite bewildering creatures. New “scientific” discovery has been found.
Namely, while working on skin pigments of Amazon frogs that have polka-dots, they were surprised by something that haven’t seen or heard of before. What they discovered was a fluorescent frog, whose being was confirmed for the first time in history. When placed under the UV light, the frog starts to glow.
The frog’s appearance in normal light is quite ordinary. Its skin is green and brown, dappled with red spots all over it. However, to the surprise of many researchers, when put under UV torches, the frog becomes fluorescent.
The pigments of frog’s skin take in the light at short wavelengths and reproduce it at longer wavelengths.
These pigments are not found on any animal that lives on the land. However they have been seen in some living beings which live under the water, such as jellyfish and anglerfish.
The frog is fluorescent owing to lymph and glandular secretions. The chemical that enables the frog to emit this glow has never been seen before in vertebrates.
In her interview with Chemistry World Dr Maria Gabriella Lagoria, a photochemist at the University of Buenos Aires and study co-author stated that:
‘This is very different from fluorophores found in other vertebrates, which are usually proteins or polyenic chains,’
It has also been discovered by the researchers, from the Bernardino Rivadavia Natural Sciences Museum in Buenos Aires that this phenomenon increases brightness for as many as 30 per cent.
Co-author Dr Julián Faivovich declared that hopefully this discovery will manage to encourage and motivate other scientists to seek out for more similar phenomena in amphibians and devoute more to this field of research. He expressed his wish for them to:
“Start carrying a UV flashlight to the field’.”
