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cp's glow blue to attract prey

  • Thread starter cody
  • Start date
Wow, that's awesome! I'll see my N. khasiana in a whole new light now...No pun intended...Not to mention my other plants.
I know others have tried doing similar tests for UV reflectance in CP's but haven't gotten quite such magnificent results. I wonder what they did differently? Probably just better, more precise equiptment.
 
Wow this is amazing! I can't wait to get a gracilis and shine a blacklight on it! :awesome:
 
I'm getting a blacklight now.
 
Wow this is amazing! I can't wait to get a gracilis and shine a blacklight on it! :awesome:

What they show as N. gracilis in the article looks a heck of a lot like N. ventricosa or burkei. But hey, gracilis probably glows too ;)

However, humans cannot see in the UV spectrum, so you still wouldn't see anything with a black light.

Edit: the images produced in the article are made using special UV filters/ UV sensitive camera (not sure on the details with that) which are then rendered into colors we can see. You won't be able to see that with your naked eye.
 
Correction: I should have said that you are not sure to see anything (you may, yet you may not). Just because you won't see the UV doesn't mean that the plant doesn't also reflect light in the far blue and violet wavelengths (not quite UV) which you would be able to see .

Just like when you put a black light up to a scorpion and it glows, you're not seeing it reflect UV (though it ALSO reflects UV), your seeing it reflect far blue and violet wavelengths which are still in our visual range. It's possible some CP's will act the same way, but don't necesarrily count on it is all I'm saying.

Does anyone who already owns a blacklight want to test this out on a few of their plants before everyone starts buying blacklights :)?
 
Ok...So i must further correct myself. Thanks for bearing with me on this, and hopefully we all learn something from this, lol.

Regarding glowing scorpions: Upon further research, scorpions aren't merely reflecting light in certain wavelengths, they actually GLOW (fluoresce) when exposed to UV light. Specialized proteins in their exoskeleton react in the presence of UV light causing them to glow a ghostly green. So, you're not seeing the UV, but the glow is TRIGGERED by the UV. I didn't know that before. Learn something new every day...

In regards to the plants: I don't know what to expect. You might get a better idea by reading the original scientific paper cited by the BBC article (Link to abstract here: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1438-8677.2012.00709.x/abstract) , but I'm not going to do that now, lol.

As you can see, I'm very particular about my facts, lol.

Carry on...
 
Fluorescence usually refers to the quality of a material which emits visible light when exposed to UV light. In a more general sense it is a material which absorbs light and emits light, usually with a lower wavelength (it has less energy). I don't think it has much to do with the reflection. The article isn't very clear on weather it fluoresces UV light or visible spectrum light.

I'm not an expert on this so correct me if I'm wrong.



-BioZest!
 
  • #10
Ok. I typed the last post while you (richjam) were typing your last one. I read the article and it said:

"On excitation at 366 nm, N. khasiana peristome 3:1 CHCl[SUB]3[/SUB][FONT=Arial, Lucida Grande, Geneva, Verdana, Helvetica, Lucida Sans Unicode, sans-serif]–MeOH extract and its two major blue bands showed strong fluorescence emissions at 430–480 nm"[/FONT]

So basically when the N. khasiana peristome is exposed to the UV light at the wavelength of 366, it
[FONT=Arial, Lucida Grande, Geneva, Verdana, Helvetica, Lucida Sans Unicode, sans-serif]fluoresces wavelengths 430-480 nm which is violet up to blue in visible light.

If you get a black light that emits the wavelength 366, the plants listed in the abstract will glow blue.
[/FONT]
 
  • #11
*Lil Stinkpot looks around for her four foot blacklight.*
 
  • #13
This is really cool! Many flowers have been known to reflect UV in a way that it directs a path for pollinators, which can see the patterns. I guess this is the same method, except the bugs meet a much different fate in this situation.
 
  • #14
I don't think any of these plants are fluorescing though, I think they are just being illuminated by the black light. Expanding on what good said above me, the idea that plants, flowers, etc "fluoresce" when exposed to UV light is not a new concept. This is just the first time they've done it on CP's from what I can tell. We learned about this extensively in my entymology class when learning about pollinator attraction to flowers. Many insects do not see much of the visible light spectrum but are able to see UV light if I recall correctly. Hence, as the insect flies it sees this "glowing" plant and is like hey that looks like a good place to look for food/pollen/whatever and then falls into the trap. As for the fact that the plants seem to glow under blacklights... I think that is more of the same kind of reaction you see when you put fluorescent paint under a black light not what the article is referring to. These are just my opinions and interpretation of the article though and I could be completely wrong. Please someone write up a paper and prove me wrong cause glowing CP's would be pretty awesome :-O
 
  • #15
I don't think any of these plants are fluorescing though, I think they are just being illuminated by the black light. Expanding on what good said above me, the idea that plants, flowers, etc "fluoresce" when exposed to UV light is not a new concept. This is just the first time they've done it on CP's from what I can tell. We learned about this extensively in my entymology class when learning about pollinator attraction to flowers. Many insects do not see much of the visible light spectrum but are able to see UV light if I recall correctly. Hence, as the insect flies it sees this "glowing" plant and is like hey that looks like a good place to look for food/pollen/whatever and then falls into the trap. As for the fact that the plants seem to glow under blacklights... I think that is more of the same kind of reaction you see when you put fluorescent paint under a black light not what the article is referring to. These are just my opinions and interpretation of the article though and I could be completely wrong. Please someone write up a paper and prove me wrong cause glowing CP's would be pretty awesome :-O

Im bringing my small blacklight down to Virginia with me this weekend so we can test it on Graham's nepenthes.
 
  • #16
I don't think any of these plants are fluorescing though, I think they are just being illuminated by the black light. Expanding on what good said above me, the idea that plants, flowers, etc "fluoresce" when exposed to UV light is not a new concept. This is just the first time they've done it on CP's from what I can tell. We learned about this extensively in my entymology class when learning about pollinator attraction to flowers. Many insects do not see much of the visible light spectrum but are able to see UV light if I recall correctly. Hence, as the insect flies it sees this "glowing" plant and is like hey that looks like a good place to look for food/pollen/whatever and then falls into the trap. As for the fact that the plants seem to glow under blacklights... I think that is more of the same kind of reaction you see when you put fluorescent paint under a black light not what the article is referring to. These are just my opinions and interpretation of the article though and I could be completely wrong. Please someone write up a paper and prove me wrong cause glowing CP's would be pretty awesome :-O

They are fluorescing. It says this in the abstract of the paper here:http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1438-8677.2012.00709.x/abstract. I also said stuff about it in the last post of page #1. If the plants were just being illuminated by the backlight, you wouldn't be able to see any light because humans can't see the UV which would be reflecting off the plant.
 
  • #17
I saw what you said and I read the abstract. When I said the plants aren't fluorescing I was more referring to Luca's blacklight pictures. My point is more that we cannot see the fluorescing which you just said as well biozest, but bugs can. I was also just adding that the fact that plant's "glow" to attract insects is not new.
 
  • #18
Ok I see what your saying...I think someone said that most bugs can see more UV the visible light spectrum. Maybe they would see the fluorescing blue better than us because it is the closer to UV than red, orange and yellow?
 
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