LIGHTING UP TIME..

THE oldest fluorescent colour patterns ever seen have been discovered on 240million-year-old shells.

Boffins used UVlight to view stripes, zigzags and flame patterns.

The scallop shells are from the Mesozoic Era, when dinosaurs still roamed the Earth.

They were found by researchers at the Geosciences Centre at the University of Gottingen, Germany.

Dr Klaus Wolkenstein said: “The colour spectrum ranges from yellow to red with all the transitions in between.” He added it “suggests that there were clear regional differences in the fossilisation of these scallops”.