Amphibians glowing secret

Could it be that many — maybe even all — amphibians glow and we never knew it? In a recent study in Scientific Reports, researchers found that a variety of amphibians lighting up with bioluminescence — species that were never before known to have that quality. Researchers tested eight families of salamanders, five families of frogs and one family of caecilians — limbless amphibians. All of them, even larvae, lit up in blue light, rather than the ultraviolet light researchers often use. Most were green, but some were yellow or orange.

“There is still a lot out there that we don’t know,” lead author Jennifer Lamb told the New York Times. “This opens up this whole window into the possibility that organisms that can see fluorescence — their world may look a lot different from ours.”

Read more from the New York Times here.