Scientist Bernd Schöllhorn was exploring a forest in northern Vietnam when he spotted something usual though the foliage: a radiant green orb.
The glow from the paper wasp nest was particularly intense, with sections of the exposed paper comb visible from up to 60 feet away, according to the study published in the Journal of Royal Society Interface earlier this week.
The team of researchers tested the nests of six different species of the paper wasp found in Vietnam, France and French Guiana under UV light 360 and 400 nanometers in wavelength.
“Finding this in so many species, and across three different continents, is remarkable,” says Swanne Gordon, an evolutionary biologist at Washington University in St.
According to Science Alert’s Michelle Starr, humans can only see the phemonemen when the organism is illuminated by an external light source, like Schöllhorn’s UV torch.
Some entomologists suspect the silken cocoon caps, which protect young paper wasps during metamorphosis, may regulate the amount of damaging ultraviolet radiation that reaches the larvae—like a sunshade for baby wasps.