I thought that this article was very informative. I had know that many animals have unique defense mechanisms but I never knew that bioluninescense was one of them. I also did not know that bioluminescense was used as a warning signal. It is used to ward off predators and to attract mates. Another intresting fact is that there are 12,000 known speices of milipides. But most of them are undiscovered and are thought to range around 100,000.
The scientific method is a way to ask and answer scientific questions. You do this by making observations and doing experements. The steps of the scientific method are: ask a question, do background research, construct a hypothesis, test your hypothesis, analyze your data and then comunicate your results. In this article all of these steps were followed. The question: What is bioluminsscence used for? The background research was finding out how the milipedes live and what they eat. The hypothesis was that by using bioluminescence as a warning signal, luminisecent millipedes would be attacked less than the non luminesscent ones. To test the hypothesis a bronze cast of a millipede was created which they pained with glow in the dark paint. The millipede was taken to a park and set among non luminicent millipedes. When the data was analyzed it was discovered that over all, about 1/3 of them, both real and fake had been attacked. In conclusion, it was discovered that the predators don't care if the millipede is illuminated or not.
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