March 19, 2013
KQED also posted a video on You Tube.
Kimsey, who advises the undergraduate Entomology Club, traveled to Alcatraz with club members in February of 2012 for a rat population count. Bait laced with fluorescent, non-toxic dye enabled the crew to search for rat feces.
Nguyen noticed that not only did the rat feces glow under the black lights but so did millipedes. He showed the glowing millipedes to Kimsey.
Had they consumed some of the rat bait? No. An experiment at the Bohart Museum of Entomology on the UC Davis campus showed that these millipedes (Xystocheir dissecta (Wood) glow under black lights, just like scorpions.
Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology and professor of entomology, suspects that the millipedes on Alcatraz Island originated from soil transported over from the nearby Angel Island when “The Rock” was just that—rock with little or no soil.
The species is a relatively abundant species in the Bay Area. “This particular species of millipedes glowed all along, but “nobody was paying any attention to it,” she said.
The former maximum-security federal penitentiary once housed some of the country's most notorious inmates including Al “Scarface” Capone, George “Machine Gun” Kelly, Robert “The Birdman of Alcatraz” Stroud or Arthur “Doc” Barker.
Related Link:
The Fly Man of Alcatraz
--Kathy Keatley Garvey
Communications specialist
UC Davis Department of Entomology
(530) 754-6894