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n2doc

(47,953 posts)
Sat Apr 7, 2018, 01:11 PM Apr 2018

Puffin beaks are fluorescent and we had no idea

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A scientist in England has made an enlightening discovery about Atlantic puffins — under a UV light, their bills glow like a freshly cracked glow stick.

"It was sort of discovered by accident," said Jamie Dunning, the ornithologist who first saw the beaks light up.

Dunning normally works with twites, another type of bird, but he had been wondering if puffins had Day-Glo beaks for a while, since crested auklets — seabirds in the same family — also have light-up bills.


more
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/puffin-beaks-flouresce-1.4607386
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Puffin beaks are fluorescent and we had no idea (Original Post) n2doc Apr 2018 OP
Well, we should have suspected. eppur_se_muova Apr 2018 #1
I think of them more as ravers than hippies. n/t n2doc Apr 2018 #2
Wow, oh, wow. So danged mysterious. One has to wonder what that's all about! n/t Judi Lynn Apr 2018 #3
Human color vision is a kludge. hunter Apr 2018 #4

hunter

(38,264 posts)
4. Human color vision is a kludge.
Sun Apr 8, 2018, 02:16 PM
Apr 2018

Our small mammal ancestors lost two ancestral color receptors in the course of their evolution, possibly because they were nocturnal, night vision being more important than color vision.

We great apes got the equivalent of half a color back when one of these remaining receptors split into our "red" and "green."

But it's nothing like the rich color spectrum birds enjoy.

Most birds are tetrachromatic, possessing four types of cone cells each with a distinctive maximal absorption peak. In some birds, the maximal absorption peak of the cone cell responsible for the shortest wavelength extends to the ultraviolet (UV) range, making them UV-sensitive. In addition to that, the cones at bird's retina are arranged in a characteristic form of spatial distribution, known as hyperuniform distribution, which maximizes its light and color absorption. This form of spatial distributions are only observed as a result of some optimization process, which in this case can be described in terms of bird's evolutionary history.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bird_vision


A healthy puffin's beak is no doubt spectacular as seen by other puffins.
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