{"id":231924,"date":"2025-10-29T11:11:16","date_gmt":"2025-10-29T11:11:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/231924\/"},"modified":"2025-10-29T11:11:16","modified_gmt":"2025-10-29T11:11:16","slug":"some-bats-glow-green-under-uv-light-study-finds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/231924\/","title":{"rendered":"Some bats glow green under UV light study finds"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Scientists around the world have previously discovered that some other <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/newsround\/67016059\" class=\"ssrcss-jx182a-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">species of mammals, fish and insects<\/a> glow under ultraviolet light.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">However, this had never been spotted in bats in North America before.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Experts from the University of Georgia in the United States decided to take a closer look at sixty different bat specimens under UV light.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">They found that six different species &#8211; big brown bats, eastern red bats, Seminole bats, southeastern myotis, gray bats and Brazilian free-tailed bats &#8211; all glowed green.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">According to the study, the glow appeared mostly on the wings and hind limbs of bats.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The team say the colour and location of the glow suggest that it is a genetic characteristic &#8211; passed down through bat groups &#8211; and not something related to the environment where the bats live.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">However, experts say that the reason why the glow might help the bats is still unknown, but they think it could be to do with communication.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Steven Castleberry, author of the study, explained: &#8220;The data suggests that all these species of bats got it from a common ancestor. They didn&#8217;t come about this independently. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Maybe glowing served a function somewhere in the evolutionary past, and it doesn&#8217;t anymore,&#8221; he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Scientists around the world have previously discovered that some other species of mammals, fish and insects glow under&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":231925,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[90,56,54,55,4407],"class_list":{"0":"post-231924","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-uk","10":"tag-united-kingdom","11":"tag-unitedkingdom","12":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231924","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=231924"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231924\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/231925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=231924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=231924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=231924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}