<p>The visualization of latent fingerprints (LFP) is still a very important problem in forensic analysis, mainly due to the low visibility, the variety of substrates, the aging process, and the exposure to environmental factors. Traditional techniques like powder dusting and cyanoacrylate fuming are very limited in their sensitivity, are poisonous and have a lot of background noise, especially with fingerprints that are weak, wet or aged. In order to resolve these issues, a new method is proposed in this paper, which is a biosuperglue-assisted luminous nanomaterial technique for better LFP detection. Rare earth nanoparticles based on Europium were attached to the mussel adhesive protein (MAP), which is a DOPA-rich bioadhesive known for its strong and universal surface-binding ability. The catechol groups in MAP provide strong bioadhesive as they facilitate the strong interactions of fingerprint biomolecules such as amino acids, proteins, and sweat residues, and at the same time, they enhance the nanoparticle adhesion and optical stability. The resulting europium-MAP nanoconjugate showed very high luminescence intensity, excellent photostability, lower background interference, and better ridge contrast under both ultraviolet and visible light. This hybrid bio-nanocomposite provides very good latent fingerprint visualization on various types of porous and non-porous surfaces, including difficult aged and low-residue prints. The proposed method is a low-toxicity, environmentally friendly, and extremely sensitive alternative for the next generation of forensic fingerprint detection.</p> Graphical abstract <p></p>