Most of the world’s wonders happen in the dark. Beneath the ocean’s surface, corals glow in radiant greens and reds. In the forests of North America, flying squirrels shimmer with a hidden pink hue. And now, in the Tasmanian wilderness, a small spotted marsupial has joined this quiet parade of living lights.
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The eastern quoll, a cat-sized carnivore with fur as unassuming as a house pet’s, was recently photographed doing something extraordinary: glowing under ultraviolet light. Until now, this phenomeno known as biofluorescence had only been observed in captivity for quolls. The new image, captured by wildlife photographer Ben Alldridge, marks the first time the species’ secret radiance has been documented in the wild.
What does it mean when an animal shines in wavelengths we cannot see? Is this nature’s hidden language, an evolutionary trick, or simply an accident of biology? While science is still searching for answers, one thing is clear: moments like this remind us that the natural world is far more mysterious than it appears in daylight.
A Glow in the Tasmanian Night
In the rugged wilderness of southwest Tasmania, photographer Ben Alldridge witnessed something few imagined possible outside a laboratory or sanctuary. As dusk fell, a family of eastern quolls emerged from the shadows small, spotted marsupials no bigger than a house cat, their coats blending into the dim light. But under the beam of Alldridge’s ultraviolet strobe, their fur ignited with an otherworldly glow: peach, gold, and red tones radiating from what moments before looked like ordinary gray and black.
This was more than a striking image. It marked the first photographic evidence of an eastern quoll biofluorescing in the wild, a discovery submitted to the 2025 Beaker Street Science Photography Prize. While Alldridge had previously recorded quolls glowing in captivity at a wildlife sanctuary, capturing this phenomenon in their natural habitat required both preparation and restraint. He tested the UV light to ensure the animals were undisturbed before documenting the moment, mindful that wildlife photography should never come at the expense of the creatures themselves.
For Alldridge, the experience was as surprising as it was beautiful. “You wouldn’t actually expect this sort of gray fur to glow this interesting golden sort of peachy color with really intense reds,” he reflected. What appeared to human eyes as ordinary suddenly revealed a hidden spectrum a reminder that nature often keeps its most astonishing secrets just beyond the limits of our perception.
The Science Behind the Glow
The glowing fur of the eastern quoll is part of a broader natural phenomenon known as biofluorescence. Unlike bioluminescence, where organisms such as fireflies produce their own light through chemical reactions, biofluorescence requires an external light source. Certain proteins and pigments in an animal’s skin, scales, or fur absorb ultraviolet (UV) light and then re-emit it as visible color, often in striking greens, blues, or reds. To the human eye, the effect is invisible under normal daylight, but under UV illumination the transformation becomes unmistakable.
This process has been well documented in marine life corals, jellyfish, and some species of fish glow vividly in the depths of the ocean. More recently, scientists have identified biofluorescence in mammals, an unexpected twist that has reshaped assumptions about the animal kingdom. Flying squirrels in North America, for example, glow in shades of pink; platypuses in Australia show a teal-green radiance; even polar bears, wombats, and zebras have been added to the list. Each new discovery suggests biofluorescence may be far more common across species than previously believed.
What makes the quoll’s case especially fascinating is that biofluorescence could play a role in how animals perceive one another. While humans lack the ability to see ultraviolet wavelengths unaided, many nocturnal species have more sensitive visual systems. This means quolls and other creatures may be moving through a world filled with hidden signals that remain invisible to us. As photographer Ben Alldridge put it, “Technically, it’s always going on, but simply because our eyes aren’t designed for it, we can’t specifically see it in isolation.”
For now, the biological mechanism is clear molecules capturing UV and re-emitting it as color but the deeper question of why animals glow at all remains open. That mystery is what continues to captivate scientists and photographers alike.
The Unsolved Mystery
If the science behind biofluorescence is relatively straightforward, its purpose in the animal world is anything but clear. Researchers agree that glowing fur, feathers, or scales must serve some evolutionary function yet the explanations vary widely, and none have been proven.
One leading hypothesis is communication. In nocturnal environments, where vision depends on limited wavelengths of light, biofluorescence may act as a secret signal visible only to species with UV-sensitive eyes. A glowing pattern could help quolls identify one another in dense underbrush or signal readiness during mating. Photographer Ben Alldridge speculated it might even serve as a kind of “fingerprint system,” allowing individuals to be recognized by subtle differences in their glow.
Others suggest camouflage could be at play. Dr. Paula Anich, who co-authored a study on biofluorescent platypuses, proposed that re-emitting UV light could help animals blend into their surroundings by reducing the contrast between their bodies and the ambient light at dawn and dusk times when many predators are most active. In this sense, glowing may not be about standing out at all, but about becoming harder to see.
Still, not all scientists are convinced. Some caution that biofluorescence might be an ancestral trait with no current adaptive function, much like the vestigial tailbone in humans. In this view, glowing fur may be a biological echo from an earlier stage of evolution, persisting simply because it has not posed a disadvantage.
The diversity of theories reflects just how little we know. Despite growing reports of biofluorescence across mammals, the sample sizes are often small, and observations are sometimes limited to preserved specimens in museums. Whether quolls, platypuses, and other glowing animals use this trait actively or whether it is an incidental quirk of their biology remains an open question. For now, the glow lingers at the edge of mystery, hinting at evolutionary strategies we have yet to fully decode.
Conservation and Human Impact
While the sight of a glowing quoll is enchanting, it comes with a sobering backdrop: eastern quolls are endangered. Once widespread across mainland Australia, they vanished there by the 1960s, and today their last stronghold is the island of Tasmania. Even there, their numbers have dwindled due to habitat loss, climate change, predation by invasive species, and collisions with vehicles. What was once a common marsupial is now a species clinging to survival.
Alldridge’s photographs have drawn attention not only to the hidden beauty of these animals but also to their fragility. Images that capture public imagination can be powerful tools for conservation. In the case of the quoll, its sudden global visibility may help inspire efforts to protect its habitats and reduce human-driven threats.
The discovery also intersects with a growing scientific focus on light pollution. Artificial illumination disrupts the rhythms of nocturnal species, pushing them away from traditional habitats and, in some cases, causing mothers to abandon their young. If biofluorescence plays any role in quolls’ communication or camouflage, excess light could undermine these natural adaptations. As Alldridge observed, “The amount of light we waste illuminating space — both physical and now literal is ridiculous, and in many cases is counterproductive to why the lights are installed to begin with.” His remark highlights a pressing irony: our own glow may be dimming nature’s.
Conservation, then, is not just about protecting quolls from direct threats like predators or cars but also about rethinking how human activity shapes the nocturnal world. Each new discovery whether a glowing quoll in Tasmania or a fluorescent platypus in a museum drawer reminds us how much remains unseen. Protecting that hidden world requires humility, restraint, and an acknowledgment that our presence alters what we barely understand.
Hidden Light in the Natural World
The quoll’s glow is more than a scientific curiosity; it is a reminder that reality extends beyond what our eyes can register. Just as ultraviolet light reveals hidden patterns in fur and feathers, human perception often captures only a fragment of what is present. Mystics across cultures have spoken of inner light qualities of compassion, awareness, or wisdom that may not be visible yet still radiate influence. Science, in its own way, is now affirming that the natural world also carries unseen dimensions, waiting for us to notice.
The fact that biofluorescence exists at all suggests that nature operates with layers of communication and design beyond our usual senses. A quoll glowing in the forest may be exchanging signals invisible to us, much like people connect through subtler energies of presence or intuition. Both science and spirituality invite us to expand our perception: one through instruments and experimentation, the other through consciousness and practice.
There is also an invitation to humility here. If an ordinary marsupial can carry within it a secret light for millennia without human awareness, what else remains unseen in the ecosystems around us or within ourselves? To protect the quoll, or any living being, is not just an act of conservation. It is an act of reverence for mysteries larger than we can name.
The glow under UV light does not make the quoll more alive than it already was. It simply reveals what was always there. Perhaps this is the deeper lesson: that our task is not to impose more light upon the world, but to learn to see the light already woven into it.
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