"I think these kind of discoveries just cause us to pause in wonder at the world around us," Erik Olson, an assistant professor at Northland, told Newsweek. "This trait could just be a cool color they happen to produce," Kohler said. It might also help them avoid predators, or have no special function at all. Researchers don't know why the creatures' fur turns cotton-candy pink, but they think it might help them recognise each other when there isn't much light, the team told Newsweek. ![]() The fur of other squirrels-the eastern gray squirrel ( Sciurus carolinensis), the fox squirrel ( Sciurus niger) and the American red squirrel ( Tamiasciurus hudsonicus)-had no such glow. But the researchers don't know what effect this has on the squirrels, so they advise not to try it out on living animals in the wild. Shine ultraviolet light on the critters that glide from tree to tree in forests from Honduras to Alaska, and they will shimmer. Out of 135 museum squirrel specimens studied, the team found only members of the Glaucomys genus-New World flying squirrels-glimmered pink, Nature reported. Martin recruited the help of undergraduate student Allie Kohler-now a graduate student at Texas A&M University-who formed a team to investigate the weird flash of color Kohler describes as "seemingly unnatural in the natural world." "I point the light at it and bam! Pink fluorescence." "One evening, I hear the unmistakable chirp of a flying squirrel at our bird feeder," Jon Martin, a professor from Northland College in Wisconsin told Newsweek. ![]() The squirrels have made it into a Nature Highlight! #Nature #Journalofnature #flyingsquirrels #fluorescence #ultraviolet #discosquirrel /n1Iliyaysq- Allie Monahan Kohler January 28, 2019
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