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Why do no mammals have green hair?

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 tlm 04 May 2014
This is Duncan's question really... we thought we should send it into new scientist, but then decided you lot were cleverer and more knowledgeable...

You get green reptiles, green fish, green birds, green insects, green amphibians, but no green mammals??? Why?
 mypyrex 04 May 2014
In reply to tlm:
> This is Duncan's question really... we thought we should send it into new scientist, but then decided you lot were cleverer and more knowledgeable...

> You get green reptiles, green fish, green birds, green insects, green amphibians, but no green mammals??? Why?

Have you not seen a sloth?
(admittedly it's covered in green algae)
Post edited at 19:30
OP tlm 04 May 2014
In reply to mypyrex:

> Have you not seen a sloth?

> (admittedly it's covered in green algae)

No. Maybe I didn't see it because it was in a tree, green and not moving?
 Skol 04 May 2014
In reply to tlm:

I will ask Elvis. Hang on.
andymac 04 May 2014
In reply to tlm:

Does a 20 stone ,snorting ,wheezing, 40 something bloke in Cannondale Team kit count?

Not me btw.

I've still got youth on my side.
 Skol 04 May 2014
In reply to tlm:
Huhuh, Huhuh. You ain't nothing but a houndog, crying all the time! Huhuh.
It's clear that mammals are able to have green fur, it's just that according to Darwin( he's sat next to me) it has not been beneficial to their adaptation, and not a benefit. Hence no mammals with green fur. Huhuh?
'And Maries the name of my latest flame'
 Mr Lopez 04 May 2014
In reply to tlm:

It's just that if there was ever a gene fluke that meant a dog was born with green fur that didn't work out too well for it to get their fill of bonga-bonga.
 Duncan Bourne 04 May 2014
In reply to Skol:

I think that the line of reptiles that led to mammals missed out on the "green gene" and there was no need to re-invent it so-to-speak. It may be more costly in terms of energy to make green rather than any other colour so we don't get it. Aside from mammals just about every other animal has green though so it is a bit odd (birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish, insects)
 Skol 04 May 2014
In reply to Duncan Bourne:

Huhuh, Huhuh. This is Elvis. I will ask God
Huhuh Huhuh , god doesn't like his mammals being green
 angry pirate 04 May 2014
In reply to tlm:
My boring guess is that mammals generally see in black and white so green as a camoflage is redundant so has never been selected as it were.
No idea how this bears scrutiny with regards to reptilian, insect etc. vision.
OP tlm 04 May 2014
In reply to angry pirate:

Don't the same animals hunt and eat both lizards and mice?
 Skol 04 May 2014
In reply to angry pirate:
Arrrrrghh. How do you know they see in black and white? Is this from cadavers of dogs rods and cone content? My dog barks at Liverpool shirts?
 Jon Stewart 04 May 2014
In reply to angry pirate:

> My boring guess is that mammals generally see in black and white

Not so. Most mammals have 2 types of cones* plus rods in their retinas, so see a limited spectrum.


* the pinnipeds (which includes the seal, sea lion, and walrus) and cetaceans (which includes dolphins and whales) clearly are cone monochromats

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monochromacy#Animals_that_are_monochromats

No idea on the original question, just sabotaging a sensible answer with some true facts.
 Mr Lopez 04 May 2014
In reply to Duncan Bourne:

A possible line of thought there...

All green animals are green by skin pigmentation, and there are no instances of green fur.

We can safely assume that skin pigmentation and hair pigmentation are entirely different mechanisms.

So there's a chance that although green skin pigmentation can be achieved there just isn't a way for a living organism to pigment hair green?
 Jon Stewart 04 May 2014
In reply to Skol:

Dogs are dichromats - they have two types of cones in their retinas. I guess we know this by scraping bits of dead dogs' eyes and doing stuff with chemicals to see what's in them.

Humans (or most of us) are trichromats - 3 cone types - so we can tell a wider range of colours apart compared to dogs. The mantis shrimp has 12 different cone types - have a go at imagining what the world must look like that with ability to tell colours apart, must be beautiful!
 Skol 04 May 2014
In reply to Jon Stewart:

Exactly . Or grey squirrels wouldn't kill red ones?
 ebygomm 04 May 2014
In reply to Mr Lopez:

...and people can have green eyes
 psaunders 04 May 2014
In reply to tlm:

It might not be possible for mammals to develop pigments for green hair. I believe most green animals (reptiles, fish etc) are coloured green by iridescence or interference effects and not by any green-pigmented cells.
 psaunders 04 May 2014
In reply to ebygomm:

Eye colour is not caused by a pigment, it's caused by Rayleigh scattering.
 Rob Exile Ward 04 May 2014
In reply to tlm:

It's an interesting question, and sometimes I get a bit anxious that the answer will inevitably be tautological: 'there are no green mammals because evolution doesn't favour them. Evolution obviously doesn't favour green mammals because there are no green mammals.'

However, assuming (as any rational person must) that evolution IS the answer then the question boils down to 'what evolutionary advantages would being green confer that outweigh the disadvantages?'

Assuming that the energy costs of being green are more or less the same as any other colour, then what advantage would a green mammal possess? Well, it could hide in leaves - like a sloth , which is, er, green - but for most, they pretty much blend with their background anyway. Would a tiger be less visible if it was bright green? Or a rat? Probably not. Perhaps there's a green leaf rat in the Amazon that we haven't found yet?
 Rob Exile Ward 04 May 2014
In reply to Jon Stewart:

'have a go at imagining what the world must look like that with ability to tell colours apart'

I can tell colours apart! I think you'll find most people can...
 Mr Lopez 04 May 2014
In reply to ebygomm:

Just had a quick read around, and it seems animals can only synthesise melanin, which gives the standard mammal colors.

For any other colour you have to eat the pigment, and short of a bunch of birds that can process pigments that makes their feathers green or blue, these colours are not from pigmentation but an structural process that scatters the light when going through the skin, a bit like the sky looking blue when it really should be black. This is the case with reptiles apparently. Fascinating...

 Rob Exile Ward 04 May 2014
In reply to Jon Stewart:

2nd reply - the mantis shrimp presumably lives a short but merry life on acid?
 The Potato 04 May 2014
In reply to tlm:
this is a very interesting discussion, Ive always wondered what benefit there would be to cats being such silly colours, a ginger and white cat hunting in green grass stands out a mile, although I do realise that a lot of prey animals detect motion/contrast over colour
Post edited at 20:38
In reply to tlm:
> You get green reptiles, green fish, green birds, green insects, green amphibians, but no green mammals??? Why?

Best question I have heard for years!!
 Blue Straggler 04 May 2014
In reply to tlm:

How many have blue fur or red (like scarlet, crimson, pillar-box red etc, rather than shades of orange) fur?

As for the hair vs skin pigmentation....let's now look at hairless mammals. Whales, seals etc. There is a blue whale. A walrus is kind of orange. But are of them green or red?
 climbwhenready 04 May 2014
In reply to tlm:

There may be a scale effect here - most mammals are larger than most insects/birds etc (although there is an overlap, of course). It's conceivable that if you are small, it's worthwhile mimicking the big background colour (eg. green insects on a green leaf) but if you're big, it's not going to help much (a green sheep would look like a green sheep rather than a camouflaged one). So instead it's worth mimicking a feature (sheep can be surprisingly hard to pick out on a rocky background).

Maybe? It's just an idea.

Interestingly, this was in the new scientist a long time ago - the late 80s/early 90s? The question there was "Why aren't sheep green." No definitive answer, if I remember correctly. My favourite was "Because they eat their food, so don't need to photosynthesise....."
 Sir Chasm 04 May 2014
In reply to Blue Straggler: How many blue backgrounds do mammals try to blend into?

 Mr Lopez 04 May 2014
In reply to Blue Straggler:
> (In reply to tlm)
>
> How many have blue fur or red (like scarlet, crimson, pillar-box red etc, rather than shades of orange) fur?

None. If i read right that's because fur is coloured only by pigmentation, and the only pigment fur uses (melanin) only gives those shades of orange through to brown and black.

Blue is not a pigmentation but a layer of air filled bubbles that scatters the light, or in some mammals orderly aligned fibres tuned to a wavelength to make it blue. Stick a layer of yellow pigmentation on top of that and that's how you get green in reptiles and birds.

> As for the hair vs skin pigmentation....let's now look at hairless mammals. Whales, seals etc. There is a blue whale. A walrus is kind of orange. But are of them green or red?

As above, there's no green pigmentation. But as for other colours it is indeed possible to change the skin colour if you eat enough of a plant/algae made pigment. Spend a year eating only carrots and you'll see by yourself.
 Firestarter 04 May 2014
In reply to Mr Lopez:

Not so sure - had a dog with some black and some white fur. Trimmed her in the summer (she was suffering from the heat) and where the skin was black she had black fur, where her skin was pink she had white hair. Direct correlation between skin pigmentation and hair colour?
 Mr Lopez 04 May 2014
In reply to Firestarter:

Follicles hold pigmented hair or the pigment itself which is why in the black hair area the skin looked black?

Anyway, i just came back to post this as it's just too funny not to. Blue skin on a mammal http://www.slate.com/content/dam/slate/articles/health_and_science/science/...
 Firestarter 04 May 2014
In reply to Mr Lopez:

youtube.com/watch?v=ihui_dsjS2s&


her skin didn't look black, it was black. Her hair colour matched her skin colour. Absolutely no doubt about it.
Post edited at 22:33
 FactorXXX 04 May 2014
In reply to Firestarter:

The skin didn't look black, it was black. Her hair colour matched her skin colour. Absolutely no doubt about it.

For the sake of science and settling this debate, I have totally shaved the dog. The conclusion is that firestarter is correct i.e. there is a fur to skin colour correlation.
The dog is far from impressed with my research though...
 Firestarter 04 May 2014
In reply to FactorXXX:

Last time I shaved mine.....
 FactorXXX 04 May 2014
In reply to Firestarter:

Anyone got a cat that they can shave...
 Firestarter 04 May 2014
In reply to FactorXXX:

Last turkey in the shop window springs to mind....
 SteveoS 04 May 2014
In reply to tlm:

Because a green thing in a snowy, clear forest would be rubbish.
 Mr Lopez 04 May 2014
In reply to FactorXXX:

Haha, the spirit of science is well and truly alive, and if anyone lives close to cow pastures have some cordless clippers...

Oh well, it seems today it became a useful learning day.

Apparently that spotty effect in some animals is from leucism, which is similar to albinism and what causes piebaldism. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piebald

So your dog was supposed to be all black, but because of a genetic 'defect' some sections of the body lack pigmentation and show as white patches. You basically got a defective dog.
 FactorXXX 04 May 2014
In reply to Mr Lopez:

So your dog was supposed to be all black, but because of a genetic 'defect' some sections of the body lack pigmentation and show as white patches. You basically got a defective dog.

Well, she's brown and white with fur or no fur.
Not sure about the defective bit, but at the moment she's looking a bit cold and confused.
She also sleeps in/on my bed, not sure I'm looking forward to having a bald dog next to me! Probably be even worse when she gets a bit stubbly...
 Joe Barlow 04 May 2014
In reply to tlm:
Not really sure about this bit off a long shot. But I think it could potentially be due to the fact that in the case of green fish, insects, amphibians, reptiles etc they are all cold blooded (I may be wrong! please correct me) and so they cannot regulate their own temperature and thus absorb heat from the sunlight and rely on this for their heat. It is essential they receive this energy in the form of heat so that metabolic reactions can continue at the rate required to sustain life. Over time I guess certain species of these groups have evolved to find that the colour green absorbs light of the correct wavelength that provides the heat required to maintain the ideal body temperature. Whereas mammals are warm blooded and so the old reason a mammal would evolve green hair would be for camouflage or a freak mutation. The same goes for birds, hence all the different colours.

I am not sure but it is a cool question to think about.


Actually just thought about it and think I am talking rubbish think it is mostly just for camouflage, it must have offered some sort of evolutionary advantage
Joe
Post edited at 00:01
OP tlm 05 May 2014
In reply to ow arm:

> this is a very interesting discussion, Ive always wondered what benefit there would be to cats being such silly colours,

The benefits to cats being silly colours is that they get chosen for breeding by humans who like the silly colours. They don't have to hide from their prey, as they are fed by humans, so there is no disadvantage if a mouse sees them...
OP tlm 05 May 2014
In reply to Firestarter:

> Direct correlation between skin pigmentation and hair colour?

But then there are black people with black hair, and very pale white celtic people with black hair too....

OP tlm 05 May 2014
In reply to yeti:

> well... treefrogs do some great colours

Blimy - this article explains how complex it is to have a green frog, with 3 different types of pigments and light reflection involved - no direct green pigment, but brown, blue and yellow light combined!

http://www.livescience.com/4014-frogs-green.html
OP tlm 05 May 2014
In reply to Rob Exile Ward:

> It's an interesting question, and sometimes I get a bit anxious that the answer will inevitably be tautological: 'there are no green mammals because evolution doesn't favour them. Evolution obviously doesn't favour green mammals because there are no green mammals.'

In order for something to evolve, it doesn't JUST have to be beneficial. The genes to create it have to arise by coincidence in the first place in order to be selected for. This isn't a designed thing, it is a chance thing, so it might just be that a green pigment gene has never happened to arise in mammals, because it is a long way off from our existing genetic make-up, or just by chance it may never have evolved, or maybe, it did evolve, but results in some very negative associated affects along with it?
 Duncan Bourne 05 May 2014
In reply to tlm:

This one of the most interesting threads I have read for a while. I have learned something about how skin pigment works across a range of animals. Funnily enough I was thinking this same question myself
 Duncan Bourne 05 May 2014
In reply to tlm:

Many years ago in "thunder" I think, there was a story called chameleon boy about a lad who was raised by reptiles
OP tlm 05 May 2014
In reply to Duncan Bourne:

This is toooooo sad. We are in the same house and talking to one another via ukc. I am off for a shower now.
 yeti 05 May 2014
In reply to tlm:

thanks for that, : )
 Blue Straggler 05 May 2014
In reply to tlm:

Tangent. There aren't many blue foodstuffs
OP tlm 05 May 2014
In reply to Blue Straggler:

> Tangent. There aren't many blue foodstuffs

Which is why you use blue plasters in kitchens.
 Duncan Bourne 05 May 2014
In reply to tlm:

tlm has just done a re-enactment of the shower scene from Psycho by tripping in the bath, pulling down the shower curtain and going EEK!
No green colouration but definitely a red face
 Duncan Bourne 05 May 2014
In reply to Blue Straggler:

blueberries!
 anonymouse 05 May 2014
In reply to tlm:
Blue mammals exist. Google: "silver colloidal Paul Karason"
 Blue Straggler 05 May 2014
In reply to everyone who has replied to any of my posts:


I knew

I was being rhetorical :-P

Blueberries always looked rather purple to me anyhow.


 Kevster 05 May 2014
In reply to Blue Straggler:

Can't answer the green mammal, as I can see there would be an advantage in a green pigment for tree dwelling mammals for example.

I'd forgotten the bright genitals of monkeys, does the Mandrill have green in its snout?

The melanin arguement isn't too convincing, though true, if hair can form hair, toe nails, horns, scales etc, I'm sure nature could whack in a little green something too.

The eye type isn't good, many fruit eating animals have colour vision, many of these would also be omnivorous. Small mammals aren't safe from them, so need camouflage.

I can tell you why lobsters are blue though. If you don't know the answer, it one of those useless but really interesting ones.
 Mr Lopez 05 May 2014
In reply to tlm:
Amazing isn't it? Here's an awesome frog that lacks the top yellow layer, so the light bounces off the bottom melanin layer and then gets scattered by the middle (now top) 'transparent' layer.

http://www.webexhibits.org/causesofcolor/images/lost/iStock_000001003222Sma...
Post edited at 13:35
 Kevster 05 May 2014
In reply to Mr Lopez:



I saw a program about bicolour lobsters and other such "freaks of nature" all very biology but interesting
 Dauphin 05 May 2014
In reply to anonymouse:

There is a blue fella in Ealing. Proper Papa smurf.

D
 Dauphin 05 May 2014
In reply to Dauphin:

Turns out there was a blue man on Ealing. Same one as yours. Dead at 61, not the best advertisement for colloidal silver at heroic doses. Mind you he did get to go on Oprah.

RIP Papa Smurf. You freaked the hell out of me every time.

D

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