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| Flying squirrel from below... |
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| Flying squirrel from above... |
Much to my delight, just as our flying squirrel was being
readied for its inaugural launch last spring, another flying squirrel exploded
onto the scene. You may have seen the headline: “Flying Squirrels That Glow
Pink in the Dark,” read The New York
Times. Versions of the story appeared in National Geographic, Newsweek,
Smithsonian, and of course, Northland College Magazine.
I’m both a Northland College graduate and a science nerd, so my
Facebook feed exploded with the news that a team of professors and students
from Northland College had discovered that all three species of flying
squirrels in North America—northern, southern, and Humboldt’s—fluoresce hot
pink if you shine a UV light at their bellies.
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| Photo by J Martin, Northland College. |
In a version of our mechanical flying squirrel, “click” went
the gears of discovery when Professor Jon Martin shone his black light flashlight
at his backyard bird feeder. “Whirr” went the gears of science as he, his
colleagues, and a student confirmed the findings. “Bam!” went impact of the
research as it reached the scientific community through immediate publication
in the Journal of Mammalogy. And “giggle”
went the public as we all discovered this surprising and goofy aspect of
nature.
Punk-rock flying squirrels are a fantastic punchline, but the
entire story tickles me pink. For starters, Jon Martin discovered the first
glowing pink squirrel just by being curious in his own backyard. The world's
first fluorescent frog was discovered in Argentina in 2017, so Jon was checking
to see if any of our local gray tree frogs fluoresce. They didn’t, but the flying
squirrel that glided into his birdfeeder for some sunflower seeds did.
Video by J Martin, Northland College
So of course Jon shared this exciting, and weird, discovery
with his colleagues at Northland College. Being a small school, professors frequently
discuss their work across disciplines. Prof. Erik Olson is so enthused about this
potential for collaboration that his wildlife research lab deliberately shares
space with Jon’s forestry lab. “Sharing space forces people to interact, have
conversations, and start thinking about new ideas,” Erik told me over the
phone. “That cross pollination can lead to great discoveries and advancement.
Plus, the lab has organically become a space where a lot of faculty come to
make tea and congregate to have conversations.” In my personal experience, tea
and enlightening conversations are hallmarks of the Northland College vibe.
Allie Kohler, then entering her senior year at Northland,
(and now working on a master’s degree at Texas A&M,) was privy to some of
those conversations. Like many students at this experiential school, she’d
already had ample opportunity for hands-on research in the form of small mammal
trapping with both Erik and Prof. Paula Anich, and occasionally caught flying
squirrels as part of that work. Jon gave Allie his black light so that she
could test the next flying squirrel she caught. When it, too, glowed pink, Jon
and the other professors asked Allie to take the lead on formally researching
the exciting discovery. What an amazing experience for an undergraduate!
When I asked Paula what it was like to work with Allie on this
project, her answer gave me warm fuzzies. “Allie did really amazing work,” said
Paula. She had a lot of insight, and big ambitions. She worked extraordinarily
hard. Creative research with undergraduates is what Northland does best.”
For example, Allie took the initiative right away, by
applying for money from Northland’s Parsonage Fund. Bob Parsonage was the
president for my first two years at Northland, and he wished to prepare students
to become the citizen-leaders of the future. Many of my classmates used the
funds to support professional development opportunities they couldn’t otherwise
afford. Allie used the money to visit The Science Museum of Minnesota (SMM) in
St. Paul.
“Have you ever seen the inside of a museum, like in the
basement with just everything… dinosaur fossils, bones…EVERYTHING?” she gushed
to me. Yes, I feel that same excitement when peering into my own museum’s
collections room.
The curator at the SMM gave Allie access to all of the
squirrel specimens, and she found that just the flying squirrels—but not the diurnal
squirrels—glowed pink. The naturalists who preserved those specimens had no
idea that one day they would be used to study fluorescence in mammals, but one
purpose of preserving specimens is to help us answer questions we’ve not yet
thought to ask. Erik, Paula, and Jon later visited The Field Museum in Chicago
to test more flying squirrel specimens from across the map.
I asked Allie if it was difficult for her to write the
scientific paper about their research. “It’s easy if you like what you’re
writing about,” she told me. “Discoveries are only going to be valuable if you
can communicate it to other people.”
That’s one reason it was so gratifying to have their research
go viral. “The number of people we got to stop and
think about flying squirrels even for a matter of a minute is a pretty powerful
thing,” said Erik. “I think one of the biggest impacts of our research
is that it caused a lot of us to pause and wonder at the natural world that exists
right in our backyards.”
I’m not going to pretend they’re of equal importance, but
that wonder is the goal of the Museum’s flying squirrel, too.
Emily’s second book, Natural
Connections:
Dreaming of an Elfin Skimmer, is now available to purchase at www.cablemuseum.org/books and at your local independent bookstore, too.
For more than 50 years, the Cable Natural History Museum has
served to connect you to the Northwoods. Come visit us in Cable, WI! Our new
Curiosity Center kids’ exhibit and Pollinator Power annual exhibit are now
open! Call us at 715-798-3890 or email emily@cablemuseum.org.
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