Flying Squirrels that glow pink in the dark

Sunday Ladas

Mr. Ippolito

AP Biology C-EVEN

4 February 2019

Greenwood, Veronique. “Flying Squirrels That Glow Pink in the

Dark.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 1 Feb. 2019,

www.nytimes.com/2019/02/01/science/pink-squirrels-glow.html.

Flying Squirrels that glow pink in the dark

By: Veronique Greenwood

Scientists have recently discovered that their are flying squirrels that can glow in the dark. After recent studies, there have been discoveries of having three different types of flying squirrels- the southern, northern and Humboldt squirrel. The Humboldt squirrel is the one turned colors under ultraviolet illumination. Scientists are still researching if squirrels are even capable of seeing in ultraviolet wavelengths themselves. Believe it or not, this is not the first time scientists have seen ultraviolet markings on animals. Scientists have found that birds and butterflies have many markings that are usually invisible to humans, who can’t see ultraviolet wavelengths except under special lighting, but that are easily spotted by other members of their species. Fluorescence is not just common in mammals but it is also common in aquatic animals and oceans. Although scientists don’t know much about the glowing squirrels, they have hypothesized that since ultraviolet rays are abundant during the dawn and dusk periods when the squirrels are moving around, they expect that the fluorescence is visible to other organisms even when there are no biologists with UV flashlights in the vicinity.

Discovering the glowing flying squirrels and how they have evolved over time is a major discovery that still has a long way to develop with many unanswered questions. We already have little bits and pieces of the puzzle and are close to figuring out what causes people to be able to see the glowing flying squirrels and how their are three different types that we could continue to discover- the southern, northern and Humboldt squirrel. From the squirrels that scientists have discovered that have evolved they have been shocking discoveries, and the continuous discovered is just a reminder of the evolution in the world. Everything evolve, maybe humans will evolve even more, what will the glowing squirrels look like in 400 million years from now?

I thought that this article was constructed in a exceptional manor, I feel that the author made very good points and the authors tone showed the point of view she favoured. It was evident that the author was interested and really liked the topic he was writing about. However, I felt that Veronique Greenwood (the author) could have done a better job looking out the other side of this topic, I felt that he just continued to state how amazing the discovery was and there was nothing to refute it the point or a lot more evidence to back up her argument. Lastly, I thought that he could have included more information about how the new pieces of evidence that has been discovered rather than just touching on a few pieces with not explanation.  Overall, I felt this piece was very well written, however, it could have been looking at the other side of the argument.