Hypothesis: Veritasium holds a camera to interview and has someone filming him holding a camera to interview because he has no tripod

"Even platypuses glow under ultra fluorescent light" Of course they do: what exactly was evolution thinking when they created the platypus?

I love the fact scorpions can incorporate iron and nickel into the tips of claws and tail. THAT IS SO METAL! (sorry, I absolutely had to)

Fun fact: Sea scorpions (extinct) were also fluorescent. Horseshoe crabs fluoresce too, and are the sister group to all arachnids. Horseshoe crabs rely heavily on moonlight to time their mating migration. So if the common ancestor of scorpions and horseshoe crabs also fluoresced, it’s a good bit of support for the moonlight detection hypothesis! Or it’s a spandrel. One or the other.

Alternate hypothesis: scorpions are really into the rave scene.

"Should I go out tonight, or should I stay in my hole?" I can relate, little scorpion, I can relate.

This professor is badass. Admits to being wrong, that it happens oftens, and also not "professional" in his demeanour. He's joking and being nerdy. Love him

Was shocked to find fluorescing scorpions in central NC - they were so small, about the size of a pencil tip, but clearly had green-glowing tails even under natural light. I haven't seen them since I got chickens 😂

"Should I go out tonight or should I stay in my hole" - my spirit animal the scorpion, apparently

"Platypus also fluoresce" Why am I not surprised? Nothing about Platypus surprises me anymore

Hi, My family always watches your videos. We live in Sweden and this summer we went to Greece for vacation. We had a pretty large circular swimming-pool about 1 meter deep and about 10 meters in diameter. And me and my family started walking around the pool trying to get the pool in a circular motion. We asked some other people for help and they did help us. We were in total 7 adults and 5 kids doing it. The motion in the ocean :) began and every new person that entered the pool felt it and had to go with the flow direction. The funny thing is that we did this every day for a week and everybody believed that this was a pool that had fans and they swam around and around enjoying the pool. When we told people that this was not a mechanical motion and that it was started by us walking around most people did not believe us. The problem was that we just had an idéa that we tried and it worked but we could not explain it. You could make a video explaining this and I bet people with circular swimming-pools would go nuts over it. Sorry for my terrible english.

6:25 I just love how the phanerozoic eon only goes back 1/9th of the history of the earth, it's like abundant life just began a moment ago

"If there's light at night, it ain't alright." - Scorpion, probably

Earlier this summer, I went on a short night hike with some rangers in Copper Breaks State Park, Texas. We took UV flashlights and our group counted about 70 scorpions along the way. Until that night, I had no idea that they glowed!

5:35 if you shine a light on your skin, you can feel it, but it doesn't mean you can "see" the light, like where it's coming from or distance, you just know when your arm is hot or not

You probably won't see this, but congrats on the 10mil. It's been a long road and you have been consistent throughout when it comes to making quality content that educates and doesn't mislead people. You are the biggest channel I subscribe to by quite a ways, and it's not because you are trendy or topical or clickbaity (lol). It's because you are awesome and you're genuinely doing the same kind've thing that other legendary educators did when I was a kid. Congratulations, and good luck.

Hypothesis 1:Relic Trait Hypothesis 2: Attracts Prey Hypothesis 3: Communication Hypothesis 4: Camouflage Hypothesis 5:Sunscreen Hypothesis 6:Detect light

What i found with my own scorpions is that after they molt they are not florescent under black light untill their exoskeleton hardens again.

i really love him telling us about the hypothesis that proved out to be wrong and the thought process behind it

Crayfish also prefer dark places and also have light sensitive receptors in their tail section. By casting a shadow on this spot, even when their eyes are painted over, it elicits the tail flip escape response. Such a skill would help the crayfish escape from a predator luring in the water above it. Possibly the scorpian's light sensing abilities have a similar function?

Another fun fact about scorpions, unlike almost all other arachnids, they give birth to live offspring, they often ride around on their mother's back until they're large enough to fend for themselves, she'll use their front legs and claws to catch the baby scorplings and either put them on her back, or, sometimes, eat them if she's really hungry.

Douglas Gaffin was one of my professors in college. He's an outstanding educator.

Hello Derek! This was an awesome video. I loved seeing the professor's enthusiasm and appreciated you letting him speak about his working hypotheses and experiments while giving background information on the science in the video. As someone in research myself, this style of exposition did not go unappreciated and I'd love to see even more videos like this covering a whole range of scientific/mathematical phenomena!

Veritasium always finds a way to make people's day happier, he has inspired me to start my own channel🦂🦂

The one creature that have successfully fused rave culture with metal…

5:00 I wonder if the heat from the bulb was controlled for? I imagine they were incandescent lights, the year being 1968 and all, and would therefore give off a good amount of heat/infrared as well. If the experiment could be redone with LEDs or some other more efficient type of lighting, I wonder if the results would still be the same.

Congratulations on 10 million subscribers veritasium. It was very well deserved!!!!

Scorpions: have a fluorescence feature for a specified reason. Humans: lmao scorpion finding flashlight.

"even a blind man knows when the sun is shining, because he can feel it" bob weir of the grateful dead from the song Good Lovin'

I'm not usually a fan of these creatures but this video really made me reevaluate them. Thank you for broadening my horizons!

10 Million Subscribers, congratulations! Been waiting for a long time.

Congratulations on reaching 10 million! Wish you more success!

Its always great to see someone who so readily admits that their hypothesis was wrong. These are the people who really care about advancing the front of human knowledge.

Always nice to see people get excited about "weird things" they're passionate about.

'The trade-off is always should I go out tonight, or should I stay in my hole'. I never thought I would agree with a scorpion but here we are

I can't believe that I just found this channel. It is just amazing. Thank you for this excellent content!

Fun fact: Scorpions can hold their breath for 6 days. They have something called book lungs. They are layers of membranes- like pages of a book- in the exoskeleton of scorpions these membranes trap and hold their oxygen. However there is a species called the northern pseudoscorpion, can go up to 17 days without breathing. They are found in Canada, near the Arctic Circle. They are smaller than other scorpions. Hope this helps 😊

"This fluoresces about the same color as a scorpion, but it's not a scorpion, it's actually a rock" I don't know why that made me laugh

Congratulations Veratasium for 10M.

Congrats on 10 mil

So their entire body is like a light detector, letting them know when it is and isn't safe to hunt for food. Evolution really works in mysterious ways.

I love scorpions and have a UV light fixated over mine!

First time in 2yrs , i was ill and was not able to see your videos 😢 , but as soon as i got well watched , sadly from the moment I fell ill u uploaded 2videos but np i am happy , moreover this is my *1st* comment ever in any KZfaq video *any* . I like this channel very much lol 😆

I understand that the scorpions arguably had their ability to detect UV removed by bleaching the UV coating away, but how does this disprove the idea that the scorpions were not simply exposed to the UV light for so long that they were conditioned to it. This idea of course proposes that they have another system to detect UV rays, but I feel like with the information I was given about the test, it poses a small flaw (I do not know about scorpion psychology nor their ability to retain information or how they handle it, this is a mere thought I thought would be interesting to voice)

I can’t imagine what this guy can’t cover in his videos. The epitome of knowledge is right here folks

I like the defense mechanism to detect how visible they are to their predators hypothesis. Really awesome video. Really makes you think about evolution

*Always* fascinating, and humorous to *just* the right extent! This is one of my favorite channels! Good work, team! And, thanks!!

Did the study about scorpions sensing light rule out the possibility of them reacting to heat output? At the time that study took place light bulbs were extremely inefficient, producing an abysmal amount of light compared to their heat output.

1:19 I've seriously never thought in my life that Veritasium is gonna use this music.

Scorpions are so metal. From Damascus tipped tails, to having 8 eyes, and being able to absorb the harsh radiation from the sun and reflect it back at it. They're amazing

I use a UV Spotlight to catch hornworms on my tomatoes in an attempt to stay organic, works like a charm at night, they can't hide at all but they can hide from you pretty well during the day with normal eyesight.

I'd like to hear more about the sensory hypothesis. It seems to me that if, in order to make a scorpion non florescent, he has to light them for long periods with a UV light, those particular scorpions might have adapted their behavior to the increased UV environment, thus explaining the behavioral differences.

"We have bodily fluids that fluoresce" Ah, yes, I see you have seen those news exposés as well.

Congrats on 10 mil!

As a Scorpio, I find this utterly fascinating.

cool transition @ 9:26 ..🤯.. it's been awesome watching this channel transform from a nerdy Ontario student's basement hobby into the popular & professional world-renowned viewing experience it is now. Informative & inspiring, thanks Derek! 🙏

All fun and games till you mistake one for a glow stick

*Congratulations on 10 Million subscribers!!!!*

It may also be that scorpions exposed for long periods to UV light habituated and it became a less aversive stimulus/environment.

I loved this episode, rather than having something explained we got to follow the scientific method a researcher followed which was really cool.

I was literally *just* discussing this with a professor from Melbourne University who studies colour in invertebrates! Het name is Devi Stuart-Fox, if you're ever able to come back to Melbourne you should totally reach out to her, she's great

i love people who are passionate and just become experts through that passion....... then we get to learn for them.

CONGRATS ON 10MIL OMG

Alternate title: Torturing scorpions until they tell us why they’re florescent

Clickbait title: "Six crazy hypothesis for why scorpions are fluorescent. You won't believe the 5th!"

I love the pride that man has when he discovers his hypothesis is wrong. He was so excited by what it COULD be that the finding was just as relevant even though it didn’t validate his original thinking

I’m wandering how they eliminated heat as a variable in the lamp experiment. Could they just be seeking heat relief or do they know light=heat and so if they avoid heat in the shade they are therefore avoiding the light?

“An animal’s eyes have the power to speak a great language.” -Martin Buber

Congrats on 10 million Derek, I've been a subscriber for quite a while now, and I think this channel is one of the best channels on KZfaq! Thank you for making quality videos, and allowing us to learn new things :)

I like how some of these are not conflicting. Specifically the UV protection. Since it had such a strong pressure, it formed. A system built off it detects light. It's more beneficial to keep it around for light sensing than it does for UV overprotection. And any scorpions who had one and not the other (either glowing in UV or light sensing subsystem based on that) would be selected against, so the trait stays, and stays strong.

congrats on 10 million subscribers! 🎉

You’re about to 10 million subs. Totally deserved congrats

Veritasium is really on a roll! I commend the frequent releases.

Congratulations for 10 millions i love ur channel

Congratulations on 10 million subscribers sir👏👏👏

So much sea life actually sees in Ultra Violet. When you watch deep sea diving videos were they use UV cameras the ocean floor looks completely different and colorful

2 things to note: 1) showing us the different hypothesis and the path of since was great here:) 2) thats the first time a sponsor I'll be clicking a sponsor link!!

I’m pretty surprised to see camouflage misspelled @5:40. This channel is normally on point with things like that.

Congratulations on 10 million subscribers! :)

5:00 That experiment would be interesting to replicate with lights that don't emit heat, like LEDs or something similar.

Isn't it amazing that some people say that there's no chance of alien life when we're discovering new things on our planet still today! There is no great filter we've just not looked long enough and I'm positive that there's definitely something out there :)

I absolutely love how high quality your videos have become

I admire and love people with weird obsessions to "know". Someday, the information he's collecting may ... anything. Solve world hunger, save the lunar colony, help us communicate with aliens. Everything we learn is always useful eventually!

Man, you are the epitome of being productive when you do something you love.

This channel is consistently one of the best sources of "Answers to questions you didn't even realise that you needed to know". Love it.

“Internal bodily fluids that fluoresce” we all know what you’re talking about, no need to sugarcoat it.

The long exposure to UV light does not BREAK DOWN the fluorescence, it depletes the chemicals, which take time to be replenished. It is like looking at a bright red sheet of paper then quickly looking at a yellow sheet of paper. The yellow sheet of paper will appear to be green. That is because your eyes have three color receptors (cones), red, green, and blue. Yellow is a combination of red and green, so when you deplete the chemicals in the red receptor and quickly look at the yellow, only the green receptor will be activated. If you wait a short time the colors will return to normal as your eye replenishes the chemical in the red receptor. Depleting a chemical is not breaking down a chemical.

Now I understand why scorpions have the ability to pierce through metal plates.

00:57 "I'm going to grab my high-tech scorpion catching equipment here." *pulls out a bottle and a stick

Congratulations for 10 million!

Congrats on 10 mil subs mate

5:40 has by far the strangest spelling of "camouflage" I've ever seen.

I love nature and biology, a lot more than physics and math. keep these coming!

@Verisatium Congratulations for 10 Millions man!! Keep it up broo

Congratulations on 10 million

If you are here before the change of title and thumbnail you are a legend

I go to KZfaq and use the computer through assistive technologies, because I'm blind. I think this channel is really amazing and I'm very happy that it is growing, as a result of its excellent and important content! Congratulations for the excellent work and for bringing such unique and innovative content to the channel. Motivated by my interest in the computer field, with my friends I created a channel called Blind-Center, our goal is to encourage inclusion and improve accessibility for the visually impaired. We speak the Portuguese language.

Yoh! 10M🥳 Congratulations my man!🎊❤️

That's pretty badass. Looks like a glow stick

Funny when he mentions that it may be used for sensory and jokes that "some" have hypothesized it. Like, to him that's funny. To us it sounds normal. That's when you know this guy is a scorpion nerd.