They report the male and female biofluoresced in the same patterns and intensity, which is less likely if sexual selection was a main evolutionary driver.
My own theory is that the fluorescence only appears in dead animals like the museum specimens they examined (though they address that point in relation to diurnal v New World gliding squirrel specimens kept in the museum). This probably evolved so a now extinct necrophilic predator would leave the non fluorescent living platypuses alone.
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Mudface The web isn't callipygian, Fri 30 Oct 2020, 14:50,
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