A a team of scientists claim to have found the first known instanceinstead of animals building fluorescent homes. A new document details the search for nests built by certain species of wasps that glow green under exposure to ultraviolet light.. In addition, related wasps in other parts of the world also appear to be able to create similar mysterious structures.
The discovery happened during an expedition to North Vietnam, but not intentionally, according to scientists. The author of the study, Bernd Schöllhorn, professor of chemistry at the University of Paris, he said Live Science traveling with UV lights hoping to come across some fluorescent bug when it got dark. Instead, they found wasp nests with cocoon caps (woven silk structures that cover the nest and keep the larvae safe) that came off. of booger color they glow when exposed to UV light between 360 and 400 nanometers in wavelength at night. Like all good researchers, they returned some samples to the lab to study more.
“We were very surprised to find such a strongly fluorescent biomaterial,” Schöllhorn told Live Science. “To our knowledge, this phenomenon had not been observed in the past, neither by scientific researchers nor by any photographer.”
All the bright nests they found belonged to species of the wasp genus Polistes, also known as paper wasps. When they acquired nests from two others Polistes species that live in the Amazon rainforest and in France and put them under ultraviolet light, found that these nests also shone, although all nests had a slightly different intensity and color. The team’s conclusions were published this week in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface and images of the various bright nests can be seen here in its supplementary material.
G / O Media may receive a commission
While shining under a black light can be seen as an exotic trait, scientists have done so uncovered a growing list of creatures of different branches of life that they have this unexpected ability, included mammal. But they are still trying to figure out the reasons why fluorescence would be worth evolving in first place. The fluorescent nest can help wasps return home, for example, or allow them to distinguish one nest from another. It can also help the development of larvae, as the glow could act as a substitute light source during rain season. It could even be an incidental or vestigial trait that never had any purpose, or tea since he lost his purpose, but remains present so as not to disadvantage wasps.
Researchers plan to continue studying these wasps and their bright homes in order to unearth the chemicals that make them fluorescent. From here, they hope to find out if these ingredients may have any application for human use, such as a new fluorescent marker for research or medical imaging.