Why is this monkey's buttocks blue, isn't mine?

One of my daily jobs is the recovery of paleo -oriented. The most troublesome work at work is to restore animal color and texture. I often read the modern animal data as a reference reference, but found that in vertebrates, the most regular and most conservative in the color is our mammals -the regular water, black and white gray and earth color, no birds, crawling categories Those colorful tricks.

However, when further sorting the data, it is found that although most mammals have limited color range, they can evolve the color matching and texture combination of fur color. Even the same animals will appear a large number of different fur color. For example, cats, orange cats, cows and cats, three flower cats ...

How can mammals use a limited body color basic disk to play so many tricks? This is very interesting.

Simple mammal

The color of the fur of mammals depends on the color of the hair cortex or the pigment cells. There are only two types of melanin in mammals. True melanin and brown melanin -real melanin can make hair black and brown, and brown melanin can make hair red and yellow. The effects of these two melanin and albinism have the color of the three basic coats of mammals: black, brown, and white.

The color of most mammals is quite simple | Pixabay

And these two types of melanin and albinization, through further combination of distribution mode and quantity differences, the three basic colors of the three basic disk presents orange, gold, earthy, brown, maroon, tea, gray -white, etc. of mammals, etc. And different forms of spots and stripes.

Because mammals lack green pigment, and the epidermal cell crystals cannot be diffracted, the fur of mammals cannot appear in vitamin, climbing, and birds such as blue, green and purple. But this problem is not big, because the vast majority of mammals have no strong ability to distinguish colors -except for the long -category, most mammals have only two types of cone cells, almost all of them are red and green. Therefore, whether it is the fur evolution or the demand for survival, there are no other colors other than the three basic colors of the mammals.

But someone will definitely ask for objections: mammals also have green and blue, such as sloth.

Some sloths in South America really look green, but that is because moist fur attached a large amount of green algae, not the green of the fur itself. Similarly, the polar bear raised in the zoo may also become "green bear" because the fur attached algae.

The fur of the sloth is a faint green, which helps it disguise itself | Henryalien / Flickr

Some people also think that many dolphins are blue, dark blue, dark blue, and gray blue. Isn't there a whale called blue whale!

From some perspectives, we may indeed see that they show this or that blue, but in fact, their skin is black and gray, but visual errors may occur under the impact of sea water refraction light and sunlight. Although the name of the blue whale with the word "blue", they are actually lead gray and steel gray, but under the influence of the seawater, they often give people steel blue errors.

Blue whale is not blue! It's your eyes who lie to you! | NoAA

Mysterious blue blue

However, there are always one or two exceptions in everything, and there are a few bright groups in mammals.

The first exception is the long -ora -primary animals. They have three cone cells that can distinguish more colors. Among the primates, there are some types of physical parts of the body, such as the testicular of the Chlorocebus PygeryThrus and the Aracebus Patas. The naked skin of the male hips (Mandrillus Sphinx) also shows a different degree of blue and color, and even the cheeks appear blue.

Blue -abdomen green monkey's bright egg | Bernard dupont / wikimedia

These blue local skin, the collagen fibers under it have a neat and orderly arrangement difference, which produces structural colors and brings rare blue in mammals. The deeper the blue color, the more they are favored by females, and the higher the status in society.

Shanya blue ass | jean / wikimedia

Small tip of the calendar mother

Bird feathers and most of the climbing animal scales, as well as the bright flash blue on the wings of insect wings, are all structural colors. However, the foot of the blue -footed bird is blue because of the pigment in the food. If the foot is not blue, the malnutrition will be abandoned by other blue -footed birds.

Blue -footed bird: your feet are blue, you are amazing | Santiagogg / Wikipedia Commons

Hippotragus Leucophaeus in Southwest Africa is another exception. Because of the European colonists hunted and grazing the living space, the blue horse antelope was unfortunately extinct from 1799 to 1800. Different early literature records and personal descriptions stated that the overall fur of the blue horse antelope is full of luster, showing obvious light blue, blue gray, and even very bright blue.

Blue Horse's picture shows gray blue | wikimedia

However, the four fur specimens are currently preserved in the Museum of Leiden, Stockholm, Paris and Vienna, all showing dull gray yellow or earthy yellow. This is very contrast with the literature record, so that many people doubt whether they are really blue. The specimen of the blue horse antelope is the flat and unpretentious earth yellow | shagshag / wikimedia

At present, the more reliable explanation is that this may be the black and yellow hair of the blue horse antelope to reflect the sun, which causes the fur to look blue. When the animal dies, the real melanin fades in a long time due to chemical instability. It can no longer reflect blue, and even fades further, the magical blue animals that lose their lives have become dull earth yellow.

Unfortunately, we can no longer see the blue blue horse antelope.

At 12 o'clock this Saturday (August 13), the live broadcast room of the fruit shell video, together with Botanist Gu Yourong, explore the South China Botanical Garden, take you "see the world a day, look at the four seasons at a glance", and feel the plant kingdom. Charm! Click the button below to enter the live broadcast room and watch the live broadcast ~

Author: chrysanthemum beast

Edit: Pee Pee Shrimp

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