This is also why hunting vests are bright orange. Easy for humans to spot, and deer get confused by there being a fucking tiger loose in New England.
I always wondered about that, thanks.
Apparently pink works as well, if a hunter wants a second color vest
That works on the same principle, except the deer thinks you're a panther.
So was it just random that their fur is orange and not green? As both would help hunt prey just as well. Or is the advantage of being orange, that it wards away other tigers and predators that might otherwise muscle into its territory and create conflict.
It’s also orange because mammals can’t produce green pigments, so orange is the next best thing if your prey is red-green colorblind.
Our primary outer protein is basically keratin, which can be tinted orange(carotene), beige (collagen) or brown/black (melanin).
The green pigment is a byproduct of bilirubin catabolism, which we don't have because we use a different pathway to metabolize and recycle it.
more accurately, orange pigments are readily available. Nothing fundamentally stops mammals (or anything else) from developing a green. Note for example many animals have green eyes.
From what I understand green eyes are a bit weird as far as coloration goes, as they look green due to the way light is interacting with small amounts of melanin in the iris (the same pigment that makes eyes brown) rather than due to green pigment. I’m not sure that could be replicated in fur vs in a liquid environment like with the eye.
Birds mimic green colored pigments with iridescence (except turacos, they have green pigments for real) in their feathers, but I’m not sure that’s something mammals can do structurally in fur the way birds can in feathers.
This is probably an example of natural evolution/selection where tigers that had slowly evolved more orange in their fur naturally, were able to feed more. This in turn meant the orange triat in their genes was passed on more frequently and became more dominant in the population.
In a sense it was probably a "random" mutation, but when it became useful and effective it was passed down quicker.
This is how evolution works. People often imagine some sort of logical system to it, but it really is just random mutations all over, with the advantageous ones propagating. There were probably a bunch of tigers with various odd colors or patterns at some point due to random mutations, but those evidently were less useful for hunting and reproducing than how they look now, so they died out in competition with the known variants.
Are there any green animals that aren't reptiles, birds or insects? That might be a clue.
Meanwhile my colorblind ass:
Do tigers themselves see themselves as orange, or are they genuinely surprised when humans easily spot them hiding in the grass?
My cats are surprised both by me seeing them sitting on an empty floor, and by other cats who they didn't see sitting on the floor.
So I can only conclude the answer is semi-perpetual amazement.
They do not, like almost all mammals they are dichromatic! It's mostly us and some primates that can see in three wavelengths. Although interestingly enough, fish and birds can see in four wavelengths. Makes me wonder if that contributed to smaller cats being mostly gray and black, to just reduce as much light as possible?
The green image of the tiger is terrifying. You wouldn't see it until it's eyes or teeth were baring down on you in a lush green forest. Thankfully humans weren't it's main prey and therefore it likely evolved to appear orange instead...
Umm, I've met tigers.
You need to explain to them that we're not prey, but they haven't figured it out yet.
I think the key word is "main".
fish are friends not food.
I'm colorblind and the images are nearly identical. Good thing I'm not in tiger habitats very often.
Thank you, evolution, for allowing me to see orange so I can get an head start and outrun a mother fucking tiger!
outrun a mother fucking tiger
You only need to outrun your travelbuddy.
Tigers are generally crepuscular which means they’re most active around dawn or dusk, when the sun is very low in the sky. Their orange fur does not stand out so well when everything looks orange under the golden light of dawn.
Is that why cats can be so ginger and still good hunters? My orange stands out so much in the garden, but maybe to dichromatic mice he's super stealthy?
Wouldn't a mutation in the deer sight to see orange be vastly evolutionary beneficial?
Only in areas with tigers, and then it would only express itself enough if there were enough evolutionary pressure exclusively on that survival tactic.
As long as other causes of death happen to deer in tiger territories and as long as speed remains a good survival strategy, minor mutations that would only provide an advantage in extreme specific scenarios like a tiger stalking them wouldn't have a chance to be spread.
There's also a whole host of additional brain power that needs to be dedicated to more complex colour blending and processing, and that may add enough delay to offset any potential gain in recognizing a threat.
Desperately need me a community just for tiger facts like this and pictures of tigers. Greatest of the Big Cats
Feel free to open !bigcats or !tiger I'll be your first follower.
I wish lol. I don't have enough time to manage a community though. if someone else made one though i'd follow it instantly
I vaguely remember someone mentioning a community to give your community ideas to who may want to implement it... I forgot the name.
Oooh I just thought nature was fucking stupid
A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.
Rules
This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.
