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Scientists Discover That Puffin Beaks Are Fluorescent (www.cbc.ca)
A scientist in England discovered that the bills of Atlantic puffins glow like freshly cracked glow sticks when under a UV light. CBC.ca reports of how ornithologist Jamie Dunning stumbled upon the discovery: 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. So one January day, while having a "troubling" time in the lab, he threw off the lights and shone a UV light on a puffin carcass. "What happened was quite impressive, really," he said. The two yellow ridges on the puffin's bill -- called the lamella and the cere -- lit up like a firefly. And it's real fluorescence, Dunning emphasizes: something about those parts of the puffin bill is allowing that UV light to be absorbed and re-emitted as a bright glowing light.
The fact some birds have this quality and some birds don't indicates the fluorescence certainly has some use for the puffins, Dunning said, but he's not sure what that use might be. "The bill of a puffin is forged by generations, hundreds and thousands of years, of sexual selection. There's a lot going on there. That's why it's so colorful and pretty." But the radiant color is almost certainly not being used as a headlight, he said. He said whatever's making the beak glow is reacting with the UV light waves, and those light waves aren't around in the dark.
The fact some birds have this quality and some birds don't indicates the fluorescence certainly has some use for the puffins, Dunning said, but he's not sure what that use might be. "The bill of a puffin is forged by generations, hundreds and thousands of years, of sexual selection. There's a lot going on there. That's why it's so colorful and pretty." But the radiant color is almost certainly not being used as a headlight, he said. He said whatever's making the beak glow is reacting with the UV light waves, and those light waves aren't around in the dark.
Oh come on ./ can't i post a joke?
LOL
Obviously. This is child's play.
Contrary to the claim of the article, there are some human females with tetrachromatic vision.
Why are the images in the article of such poor quality?
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Puffin's colourful beaks are an outer layer which falls off after the breeding season.
Their jaws have a flexible hinge which allows them to carry more fish at once.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
...but he's not sure what that use might be
Oh, for fuck's sake; really?? "A glowing bill on a seabird; hmm..." This is indeed a tough one, folks... could it be (this is a long shot) to attract prey??
It says to the other sex:
"Here I am, huffin' and puffin' until I blow your nest down."
"The bill of a puffin is forged by generations, hundreds and thousands of years, of sexual selection. There's a lot going on there. That's why it's so colorful and pretty." But the radiant color is almost certainly not being used as a headlight, he said. He said whatever's making the beak glow is reacting with the UV light waves, and those light waves aren't around in the dark.
Your laundry detergent, highlighters, even paint on coke cans all have UV dyes in them. The reason is not because humans can see in UV or because they need these objects to glow in the dark. The dyes make them appear artificially bright during the day by emitting the converted UV light in addition to the reflected visible light. In as much as brightly colored beaks are important for sexual selection, the fluorescent pigments are part of the trick.
When things get complex, multiply by the complex conjugate.
Is it possible it's not for any function, it's just that fish guts get all over the beak, and those fish guts happen to fluoresce under UV light?
I thought I didn't care about this when I read the title. After reading the rest I care about this an order of magnitude less.
The sun's position in the sky is useful for navigation. Except when it's a heavy cloud day like happens in alaska a lot. There's lot of light but now you can't find the position of the sun. But there are two signals that can still tell you where the sun is located. One is polarized light. Since scattering depolarizes, only the direct sun light retains any residual polarization. But this is a very faint signal. It's thought that viking calcite stones used this and some people think pigeons might be able to see light polarization. Still it's not a robust signal.
The other signal is UV light. UV is absorbed and scattered more heavily on a cloudy day. THis means that proportionally, what UV light does make it through is mainly unscattered and thus came straight from the sun.
If you have a flourescent card you can look at amd move round you can maximize the brightness when it's facing the sun. However to do that you have to always keep your head at exactly the same angle to the card othewise you are measuring the lambertion scattering angle of a surface relative to the angle you look at it not the normal incident angle of the illumination source.
SO if your eyes are fixed relative to you beak and you can see both sides of your beak you can see which side is flourescine more as you point it in different directions. when both sides are the same brightness you are pointing at the sun.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
We should document their mating habits, you know, for scientific studies, of course. Like, to find out why they were named *puffin*
I mean, it had to take a scientist looking at a bloody carcass UNDER UV LIGHTING, for f***'s sake to find this out, after so many centuries! And he's from England!
I might have felt better if it had been some stoned intern from Berkeley, or something like that
Reminds me of that quote from Sagan, about discoveries being made with That's odd rather than EUREKA
So one January day, while having a "troubling" time in the lab, he threw off the lights and shone a UV light on a puffin carcass.
Sounds like the puffin was having a worse day than he was.
We should document their mating habits, you know, for scientific studies, of course. Like, to find out why they were named *puffin*
WTF? Is tinder not enough for you?
"The two yellow ridges on the puffin's bill [...] lit up like a firefly" And, "those light waves aren't around in the dark." I think for prey too. A gnat kept bouncing on a beak...what would a bird do with evolution? An easy research study! A cage with gnats (or whatever) and puffins...iterate over different local bugs and a Nature paper as fast as you can to find more.
2-3% of females have the gene
The link you provide is for the mobile version of wikipedia. Are you by any chance bathroom-posting?
Makes Puffins look hot to other puffins.
Next scientists will discover a species of bird that can naturally
lase.
That would be true if the the color normally reflected didn't match the fluoresced color. If it's the same, then it is simply a mating thing about who has the brightest beak.