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Why no BLUE mammals

The colour Blue seems to be a rarity among land animals - mammals especially (we never see a blue cow or a blue dog and so on; only birds and fish display blue)  - is there a reason for this?

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  • Asked by rEdshiFt
  • on 2010-08-05 04:13:38
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Last edited on: 2010-08-05 05:22:15

Categories: Animals.

Tags: animals, colour, blue, mammals, pigmentation.

 

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bobbydriver says:

We have a British Blue cat - which at first glance just seems to be grey, but if you part his fur to look at his skin you can clearly see that his skin is blue.The general lack of blue mammals could be down to the fact that blue is not a common colour in terrestrial nature - so mammals would not need to be blue as camouflage. 

As you pointed out some fish and birds are blue - but then so are the sea and the sky!

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Tags: animals, colour, blue, mammals, pigmentation.

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posted on 2010-08-05 14:07:17 | Report abuse

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Jon-Richfield says:

Blue skin need not be the product of pigment; it often is the effect of blood showing through, possibly as modified by the skin proteins and melanins. The blue of eyes and the wattles of turkeys are caused by special arrangements of protein molecules, also not pigments. (Not that you said anything in contradiction; I just am emphasising how this supports the idea that proteins could produce bluish effects without there being any actually blue pigment.)

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Tags: animals, colour, blue, mammals, pigmentation.

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posted on 2010-08-07 10:23:16 | Report abuse


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Paul_Pedant says:

Sing to 12 bars:

 

I'm being hunted to extinction,

They're making sushi from my tail.

I'm being hunted to extinction,

They're making sushi from my tail.

Call out that International Whaling Commission

'Cos I am really one Blue Whale.

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Tags: animals, colour, blue, mammals, pigmentation.

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posted on 2010-08-05 14:51:24 | Report abuse


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Jon-Richfield says:

Same answer as I gave for green mammals.

As for "blue" cats, we used to breed them and were pretty well into the genetics at the time. They are really grey, with a slight abnormality in the maturation of the melanin. I don't call that blue, any more than I call a golden mole golden!

 

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posted on 2010-08-05 18:49:36 | Report abuse


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ecstatist says:

There are monkeys that have blue "faces" (baboons) and blue scrotums (scrota?.)

From a physic(ological) point of view, red (and green) is easy due to the relative abundance of iron (and copper, magnesium)

Blue is tricky (note the relatively very late development of the blue LED).

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Tags: animals, colour, blue, mammals, pigmentation.

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posted on 2010-08-07 19:00:24 | Report abuse

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Jon-Richfield says:

Ecstatist, the blue faces and scrota are definite examples of physical coloration caused by organisation of proteins, much as you might find in the iris of blue eyes or the wattles of turkeys. No blue substance is involved. Mash up the tissue finely enough and the blue vanishes, much as when you finely grind a blue feather.  Such blue differs from say, Iris blue in flowers or plum blue in fruit, which is the colour of the chemical compound involved (and incidentally contains no metal). 

Incidentally, it is hard to think of much use of metal pigments in nature, except where the presence of the metal is of physiological importance and the colour is incidental, such as in blood, whether red in vertebrates, (the faint bluish tinge of haemocyanin in arthropod blood has no pigmentary effect that I can think of).

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posted on 2010-08-09 08:04:50 | Report abuse


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