Tasmania's wildlife turns bioluminescent after dark—and you can see it on this night safari

In the cloistered shadows of Linear Park, Dr Lisa Gershwin’s glasses and long, silvery hair glow in the moonlight. The scientist casts her UV torch over a boulder, which instantly lights up with neon red, orange, blue and green speckles — revealing a tiny war for domination waged by species of invisible lichen. “Light has an infinite number of wavelengths, but our eyes can only see very few of them. There’s a complex world out here that humans can’t even perceive,” she says.

I’ve met Lisa at a narrow parkway that follows a meandering rivulet from the foothills of Mount Wellington to the edge of central Hobart. In recent years, Tasmania’s capital has reimagined itself as one of Australia’s most exciting art and dining destinations. Bakeries, bars and restaurants are breathing new life into rejuvenated heritage buildings. The Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) draws crowds with its provocative exhibits, and the city buzzes with red neon during Dark Mofo — a pagan-inspired winter festival marked with feasting and nude swimming.

Away from the city lights, Lisa is here to show me that Mother Nature has her own illuminated art show too. All we need to see it is torches with different UV spectrums. “Growing up, I was that kid with the glowing stars on their bedroom ceiling. I’ve been fascinated with things that glow ever since,” she says. A Californian marine biologist, Lisa moved to Australia in the late 1990s and was spurred to explore Hobart’s otherworldly ecosystem after learning researchers accidentally discovered platypus have bioluminescent fur in 2020. She has documented dozens of species whose fur, shell or skin contain tiny globules of fluorescent pigment, and founded Glow Show Tours in Tasmania to help visitors see them up close.

(Where to see the world’s brightest bioluminescent tides.)

Before we met, Lisa sent me photos of blue sugar gliders with purple ears, incandescent scorpions, and masked owls with blazing red wings. Finding glowing specimens takes patience and all the senses. In the dark, my ears strain to tell the difference between wind in the gum trees’ knobbly limbs, burbling water and nocturnal marsupials munching in the dark. We scan the trees with our UV torches, which don’t harm or stun the animals but allow us to appreciate them in a new light.

Suddenly, there’s shuffling in the bushes and my black light falls on a pademelon, a small cousin of the wallaby, glowing emerald in the undergrowth. It stops, then nimbly hops down the footpath, joined by two others who cast bouncing shadows as they pass beneath a distant streetlamp. Moments later, my torch lights up a vibrantly red brushtail possum with ears that look like jets of blue flame, casually eating shoots in a poplar tree. The marsupial and I stare at each other until it climbs starward, disappearing into the inky canopy.

Come morning, the sandstone warehouses of Hobart’s historic harbourfront feel markedly beige compared to last night’s nocturnal colour palette. I stock up on coffee and pastries before jumping in the car, eastward bound along the Tasman Highway.