9/13/2023 0 Comments Scorpion glow in blacklight![]() The ideal test would be to deplete the scorpion’s glowing molecules, as Kloock did, to see if they become insensitive to UV. However, Gaffin says that these results are difficult to interpret, and he has many more experiments in mind. Perhaps their bodies were still picking up the glow produced by UV light, even though their eyes were blinded. When he covered the scorpions’ eyes with foil, they became less responsive to blue-green light, but not to UV. Gaffin has some tentative evidence for this idea. The entire scorpion would effectively be one big eye. If this idea pans out, it means that a scorpion’s glow could increase the surface area of its eyes by a thousand times. These signals could even pass to the brain via clusters of nerves that are spread throughout the animal’s body. ![]() Gaffin thinks that the scorpion’s entire body, from the stinging tail to the crushing pincers, collects UV light from the environment and convert it into blue-green wavelengths. Their glow effectively gives them a second UV-sensitive pigment, without having to re-tune their first one. Surely the scorpions would be best off detecting UV light itself, rather than converting it to a different colour? Gaffin acknowledges this, but he points out that scorpions only seem to have one type of light-detecting pigment in their eyes, which is tuned to blue-green. This might seem like a somewhat roundabout explanation. After all, scorpions are active soon after sunset – the only time of night when UV light is more common in the sky than the colours we can see. This is consistent with the idea that they’re using their glow to respond more strongly to UV than the qualities of their retinas would allow. The scorpions behaved similarly under blue-green and UV light, even though their eyes are much more sensitive to the former. He kept them in enclosed chambers, shone different colours on them, and measured how often they tried to scuttle away. Inspired by Kloock’s work, Gaffin decided to see just how the eastern sand scorpion ( Paruroctonus utahensis) would behave under differently coloured light. Kloock found that scorpions that could still glow stuck to a sheltered area, while the others spent more time in the open. He overexposed scorpions to UV light to use up the fluorescing chemicals in their skin (which break down as they glow). In 2010, Carl Kloock found evidence for this idea. Any object that casts shade upon their skin could reduce its glow and indicate a potential hiding place. Gaffin thinks that scorpions could easily find such hiding spots by sensing light with their entire bodies. In the wild, you’ll often find them in the shade of a single twig or blade of grass. They like shelter, and they’ll instinctively flee from light in an attempt to find it. Why bother? In the open, scorpions are vulnerable to rodents, owls and other predators. They amplify those faint signals by turning their entire bodies into light collectors. This could explain why scorpion eyes are so exquisitely sensitive, to the point where they can detect the faint glow of starlight against the background of the night sky. He thinks that scorpions glow to convert the dim UV light from the moon and the stars into the colour that they see best – blue-green. The glow could warn predators or help scorpions to recognise each other, although neither possibility has been tested.īut Douglas Gaffin from the University of Oklahoma has a more intriguing idea. Others proposed that scorpions could glow to lure their prey, although it seems that insects actually avoid fluorescent scorpions. Some have suggested that it’s accidental – the two chemicals responsible for the glow could be by-products of normal chemical reactions. Under the beam, scorpions glow a vibrant blue-green, lighting up like beacons against the darkness. Just go into the desert in the middle of the night, and switch on an ultraviolet (UV) light. If you’re the type of person who looks for scorpions, rather than runs screaming at the thought of them, then you’re in luck.
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