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.
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.