This common nocturnal animal hides a secret under its coat - a neon pink glow

Whether out in the country or in the city, opossums are all around us, hissing, scavenging, wandering into oncoming traffic.

They’re a familiar sight to most, but America’s only marsupial has a secret: beneath their furry exterior, opossums glow hot pink under the right light -- not headlights, but ultraviolet light.

Scientists are aware of the opossum’s pink biofluorescence, though questions remain about the phenomenon, chiefly, what purpose it serves.

South Carolina State Park workers decided to test the discovery and see the glow for themselves.

“Researchers have recently discovered that the opossums undercoat glows under UV light,” SC State Parks wrote in a Feb. 1 Facebook post. “Scientists are still not sure why, but think it has something to do with the animal’s nocturnal activities.”

The department’s “opossum whisperer” carried out the experiment at Charles Towne Landing Animal Forest in Charleston, assisted by an opossum volunteer named Crowder.

“Crowder glowed a brilliant pink beneath the UV light!” the post said. “Nature is so amazing!”

That the toothy, nocturnal animal glows in the dark came as a surprise to many.

“Opossums are really space aliens?” a commenter pondered.

“They hang out at the dumpsters near raves,” said another.

A stylish choice, some thought: “Crowder, you look great in pink!”

“Too bad it doesn’t make them visible to cars,” wrote another.

The opossum’s bold color choice is a standout, but they’re not the only mammal that glows under UV.

In recent months, researchers have discovered the trait in platypuses and Tasmanian devils.

Why these animals glow isn’t clear, and one animal may for reasons different than another, but experts have some ideas.

In platypuses, it may be helpful for evading predators, Paula Anich, a researcher who co-authored the platypus study, told ABC News in Australia.

“It is possible that it is actually taking the ultraviolet light that is more prevalent at dusk and dawn, making it kind of disappear so that any predators that are keying in on ultraviolet light can’t see the platypus because it is kind of cloaking itself,” Anich said, according to ABC News.

Similar ideas have been proposed about North American Flying Squirrels, which were found to fluoresce due to UV in 2019, according to the Scientific American.

Researchers believe it’s possible the squirrels fluorescent properties provide camouflage within the forests they live, dotted as they are with fluorescent lichens.

But some are skeptical that fluorescent mammals can actually see the glow, the New York Times reported.

Michael Bok, a visual systems biologist with Lund University in Sweden, said it would be “incredibly surprising” if the animals “could make out these fluorescent patterns in any sort of natural lighting environment.”

This story was originally published February 3, 2021 at 12:53 PM with the headline "This common nocturnal animal hides a secret under its coat - a neon pink glow."