'The platypuses were glowing': the secret light of Australia's marsupials

The discovery that bilbies, bandicoots, Tasmanian devils and echidnas emit bio-fluorescence under UV light has sparked the burning question. Why?

Dr Kenny Travouillon turned off the lights and headed straight for the shelf holding the stuffed platypus, armed with an ultraviolet torch to test something out. Would the monotreme glow?

All the platypuses were glowing," says Travouillon, the mammals curator at the Western Australian Museum in Perth. We went through with other mammals and we found they were glowing too."