![]() Chemically speaking, nobody's exactly sure what causes scorpions to glow, but we know it's powerful stuff - when a scorpion is preserved in alcohol, the alcohol itself fluoresces! Unbelievably, scorpion fossils have even been induced to glow under black light after hundreds of millions of years. All a scorpion researcher has to do to find scorpions is go out into the desert at night with a black light, and watch those suckers light up like Christmas trees. Why they do this is a bit of a mystery, but it makes them pretty easy to study. ![]() Some animals are just over the top, you know? Take scorpions: Is it not enough that these stinging arachnids can survive some of the harshest climates in the world, live 25 times longer than your average cockroach, give birth to live young (and some species don't even need a male to reproduce), live up to 48 hours without oxygen, and eat almost anything they can subdue - even other scorpions? No, it's not enough, because scorpions also glow electric scarab green under ultraviolet light. Easy to find and neat to show people.A bucket full of scorpions under black light. Btw, if you’re ever in the area, you can look along the shores of Lake Michigan, you can find lots of fluorescent rocks colloquially called ‘yooperlites’ (Actually just a sodalite-rich variety of syenite). Phosphorescent minerals continue emitting light for some time even after the excitation source is removed.) This may apply to fluorescent organisms as well, so you might try using multiple UV wavelengths when you’re out searching. Fluorescent minerals only glow when the UV light is shining on them and stop immediately when the light source is removed. Different excitation wavelengths produce different colors as well, and some can even phosphoresce as well as fluoresce (btw, fluorescence and phosphorescence are different for those who aren’t familiar with the terminology. ![]() Lots of minerals fluoresce including calcite, fluorite, corundum, and hyalite opal. My primary use for UV lights is for minerals. ![]() If I didn’t know about them glowing under UV light I never would have gone out looking for scorpions which makes me wonder, what else am I missing that I could find with a simple change in approach, equipment, timing or environment?!įluorescence isn’t just a property of living things. Bonus points for things that are relatively simple and inexpensive for me or anyone else to do. I’m interested to hear about your unusual observation techniques the things that you do to search for inat observations. It occurred to us that most people wouldn’t think that borrowing UV lights and going hiking in the dark to look for scorpions (and hoping for snakes, spiders and tailless whip scorpions) is a normal evening activity. For anyone else that didn’t know scorpions glow here’s one that we found and photographed with normal flash and again under the UV light Of course we did what any self-respecting naturalists would do - borrowed some UV lights and planned a night hike to look for them again. ![]() Last year I attended a lecture on arachnids and a guided night hike and found out that scorpions glow under UV light! This is probably common knowledge for many of you…but it blew my mind. ![]()
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