Glowing Frogs In South America?

Scientist has recently discovered that the polka-dot tree frog, native to countries such as argentina and brazil, glows! The researchers were originally studying the pigment of the frog and did not at all expect what they saw next.

It is exceedingly rare for land animals to exhibit fluorescence and out of the 7,600 species of known amphibians none of them were thought to be luminous until now.

Under normal light the frog appears to have a greenish brown skin with red dots freckled over it, but while observed under UV light it is seen that the frog glows a bright green.

It was found that the frog emitted a fluorescence of 18 percent as much visible light as the moon!

This is possible because the tree frogs skin pigment absorbs short wavelengths of light and then re emits them at longer wavelengths.

Researchers observed that the polka-dot tree frogs fluorescence increased when near other frogs. Two of their retinal photo-receptors were less susceptible to certain wavelengths but were especially sensitive to long wavelengths of light. The discovery of the polka-dot tree frogs trait of glowing opens an entire new path of study in the field of naturally fluorescent amphibians something of which was thought to be near impossible.