Biofluorescence in the masked palm civet (Paguma larvata)

Abstract

Biofluorescence has come to general public attention over the last decade with the industrial production of “black lights”. While numerous reports on biofluorescence have become available for some groups of species such as invertebrates, birds, amphibians, and reptiles, there are fewer reports on fluorescence in mammals. So far, ultraviolet fluorescence is known from a few mammal species only, including flying squirrels, mice, Chinese pangolins, Virginia opossums and other didelphid marsupials, springhares, African pygmy hedgehogs, European hedgehogs, and platypuses. The fluorescence is, however, not produced by the animal itself in the case of hedgehogs, but by commensal bacteria. Green fluorescence can also be expressed by transgenic animals, including non-human primates, and the trait can become inheritable.