Artistic representation of the
unidentified flashlight frog (© Connor Lachmanec, aka TheMorlock on Deviantart.com)
Bioluminescence is the emission of light by certain life forms.
These include many known species of bacteria, fungi, protozoans, invertebrates,
and fishes, but there are also several controversial examples, including the
following couple – both of which may constitute remarkable new species still
undescribed by science.
SEEING RED IN SERAM
One evening in June 1986, while working on the small eastern
Indonesian island of Seram (Ceram) for the VSO,
tropical agriculturalist Tyson Hughes spied some very eyecatching, unidentified
fishes in a river.
Some typical, non-bioluminescent mudskippers (© Bjørn Christian Tørrissen/Wikipedia)
They resembled the familiar 'fish-out-of-water' mudskippers in
general size and shape. However, quite apart from inhabiting freshwater rather
than intertidal habitats, these curious fishes encountered by Tyson further
differed from all known species of mudskipper by emitting a bright, pulsating
red light.
Artistic representation of Seram's mudskipper-like
glowing mystery fish (© Ursulav/New Cryptozoology Wikia)
Tyson earnestly attempted to catch one of them, but failed to do
so.
THE FROG WITH THE LUMINOUS NOSE
In one of his famous nonsense poems, Edward Lear wrote about the
dong with the luminous nose, whereas the following cryptid was apparently a frog
with a similar attribute, yet was anything but nonsensical.
Swedish artist Richard Svensson's wonderful
interpretation of Edward Lear's dong with the luminous nose (© Richard
Svensson)
While visiting an animal fair at Newton Abbot in Devon, England, in June 1997, Devon-based
CFZ founder Jonathan Downes noticed a cage containing some tree frogs,
reputedly from northern Cameroon in western Africa and priced at
£25 per frog. Jon was intrigued by these creatures, which each bore a blue spot
on its snout, because he could not identify their species. He was even more intrigued
when informed by their vendor that the blue spot on their snout glowed in the
dark like a flashlight, possibly to attract insects as prey.
A typical green tree frog, conspicuously lacking
the flashlight frog's unique glowing snout spot (public domain – for my source
of it, click here)
Nevertheless, Jon felt that £25 was too expensive a sum, so he resisted
the temptation to buy one - a decision that he would soon bitterly regret. For
when he later described these curious flashlight frogs to various
herpetological colleagues, he was shocked to discover that there is no species
of frog known to science that can glow. Consequently, he had missed the
opportunity to purchase a specimen of what might not only be a completely
unknown species, but also exhibit a talent unique even among the world's
considerably varied array of frogs.
This ShukerNature blog post is excerpted in
slightly expanded form from my book Mysteries of Planet Earth (1999) – the first publication ever to document
either of these mystery beasts (contrary to various erroneous online claims,
the flashlight frog did not appear in one of my earlier books, From Flying Toads To Snakes With Wings (1997)).
Today, 15 years later, both of them are still unidentified and unexamined by
science - so if anyone reading this blog post (especially anyone with knowledge
of or firsthand experience in the exotic pet trade) has any additional
information concerning these or any other mysterious glowing creatures, I'd
welcome any details that you'd like to post here.
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