Snake’s Secret Language of UV Rays: Predator Evasion and Camouflage Hidden World

In research into why and how animals see their way, colour is king. At the very least, it’s a range of colors that humans can see. A study from the University of Michigan looked at a range of colours that humans cannot see and often ignore. UV color. Examining snakes, researchers classified how animals used ultraviolet patterns and tested the factors that promote the evolution of snakes’ UV colour.

Researchers have discovered that UV colour is widely found throughout the snake tree of life and is frequently used to avoid predators, says Hayley Crowell, a doctoral student in UM ecology and evolutionary biology.

The study, published in Nature Communications, highlights how researchers ignore the way that an entire group of organisms uses colour.

“There’s a lot of UV colorworking done in traditionally bright and colorful systems like birds, flowers, butterflies, but much of this color research is really biased towards human perception of color,” Crowell said.

“This work mainly focuses on either the ultraviolet or reproductive system of flowers that help in directing insects to the flower parts needed for pollination. However, there are groups such as snakes that are not necessarily on people’s radar as a broad and colorful research system.”

This study examined 110 snake species in the region ranging from Colorado to Peru. Many have visual systems that allow people to perceive UV colors in ways that humans cannot. Crowell and his colleagues took photos of the snake using a camera with a special lens and light filter to see what UV color was reflecting. They did not investigate visible ultraviolet fluorescence with black light. Surprisingly, they investigated true UV colours that are invisible to humans.

The researchers then tested many variables to see if they correlated with the presence or absence of UV colours in different species. These variables included the age and gender of the snake, what habitat they lived in, the evolutionary history of the species, and how prominent the snake’s colour was to predators such as birds, mammals and other snakes.

UV colour and the biggest snake tie? The ecology of the snake, or the relationship between it and the environment in which it lives. For example, skin skins that live in trees and tend to be nocturnal, have the most UV colour. why? I speculate that Crowell has something to do with camouflage.

The bird, which can also be seen in purple colour, is one of the snake’s biggest predators. Tree snakes move around, hunt nights and sleep during the day. Having lots of UV colours at night is no big deal. However, having it during the day is potentially protected: leaves, lichens, epiphytic plants – plants and plants that grow on other plants such as ferns and orchids can also reflect a lot of UV light. Similarly, having a purple colour hides you during the day when the bird is looking for something to eat.

Some of the unexpected findings of the study were that there were no differences in UV color between snake genders, highlighting the idea that UV color is not related to reproductive properties like snake mate selection, says Alison Davis Laboski, an associate professor of ecology and evolutionary biology.

“The lack of sexual differences in snakes was a surprise as reproduction promotes the evolution of ultraviolet rays in many other species,” Davis Laboski said. “But I don’t think snakes are actually outliers that are “different” in color from other animals. I think we scientists have overlooked many UV colours, especially in insects, with mysterious colour species. They are the next frontier. ”

The discovery that there was no difference in UV rays during sex was particularly surprising given its close relationship with snake lizards, says John David Carlis, a postdoctoral researcher in ecology and evolutionary biology.

“Sexual dimorphisms in which men appear to differ from women are very common in lizards, with many species characterized by flashy colours and large ornaments and women being more monotonous or camouflaged,” he said. “The fact that snakes’ colours did not differ in gender may suggest that sexual choices may play a greater role in the evolution of snakes’ colours than lizards.”

However, the survey results are not black and white. Crowell says another set of snakes from the study, which appeared almost identical in the “visible” color spectrum, were of the same species, of the same gender, and were collected at the same location. One snake reflects ultraviolet rays very brightly on its back, while the other does not reflect at all.

The team discovered that despite the two snakes being closely related, they may not have similar amounts of UV colour. In fact, we found that some of the largest variations of colour are within the same genus. Some of the most UV-reflective snakes are Vipers, and researchers have found that boy snakes often have more UV colour than adult snakes.

However, their research helps to embody the meaning of animals using colour. It’s not just colors that can be seen not only by humans but also by other creatures.

Co-author Hanna Weller, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Helsinki, said: “This amazing dataset really helped us understand how variable these characteristics can be, even for groups we don’t expect.”

Researchers hope their research will encourage more scientists to study the colour of ultraviolet light across organisms.