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A comment on Flying squirrels glow pink thanks to fluorescence.

Re:Flying squirrels glow pink thanks to fluorescence by meekrohprocess on Sunday November 08, 2020 @04:03PM (#25029013)
Makes you wonder how much of life "happens" in the UV and infrared spectrums that we can't see.

Does this let squirrels recognize each other in a dark forest without alerting predators? If so, did the predators adapt to that? It doesn't sound too uncommon from the other comments, but how much do the fluorescing wavelengths change? Is this another dimension of camoflauge and/or advertisement that we literally don't see?

Or is it just one of those weird things?

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Re:Flying squirrels glow pink thanks to fluorescence by Alex3917 on Sunday November 08, 2020 @04:15PM (#25029123)
Flying squirrels need to eat truffles as part of their diet, so maybe the truffles make the squirrels glow pink as part of their reproductive strategy. Since truffles live underground, they can’t reproduce unless some animal digs them up and eats them, so it would make sense to try to confer some sort of social status to the animals that are good at finding them.
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