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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.
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.
I always wondered about that, thanks.
Ok this makes complete sense now, thank you!
Meanwhile my colorblind ass:
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.
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.
Both blue and green eyes in humans and blues and many greens in vertebrates are structural, yeah. Yes the structural coloring could be recreated in fur or skin. (noting that many mammals do structural IR effects in their fur, famously polar bears)
I wish I could find the sources from when I was reading about this months ago, it was more about evolution in terms of things that can happen and not ‘random’ mutations, and one of the examples was tigers with orange fur instead of green. It’s not physically impossible to have structural coloring (although the fact there are no green mammals suggests a strong inhibition somewhere along the line), but you first have to have the genetic and molecular groundwork laid to allow it to happen. Ex: it’s not physically impossible for animals to manufacture their own vitamin C, but humans just can’t do it because we don’t have the necessary molecular pathways other animals use. I hope that makes sense for what I’m trying to get at.
Do tigers themselves see themselves as orange, or are they genuinely surprised when humans easily spot them hiding in the grass?
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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…
I’m colorblind and the images are nearly identical. Good thing I’m not in tiger habitats very often.
Same. Didn’t even realise they were different images until after I read the text.
Wouldn’t a mutation in the deer sight to see orange be vastly evolutionary beneficial?
Presumably yes, but its still down to a roll of the dice whether a mutation like that happens in the first place, and whether the individuals who have that mutation live long enough to breed, and whether that mutation actually gets passed down, etc
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Competitive advantage over their deer peers.
Oooh I just thought nature was fucking stupid
This must be utterly terrifying for them.
“Why? I’ve always been orange.” - tigers
Almost like our eyes evolved to give danger its own colour.
Would not green be the obvious route then?
idk they could make green but then in, let’s say, UV it’s like a completely different color, so it’d just be the same situation but in another level
this sounds dumb. if that was the reason then why arent they just green so that theyre camoflaged to EVERY animal and not just those with bad eyes
Evolution is throwing things against the wall and seeing what sticks (by sticking I mean reproducing bc you have better traits). If every single one of their prey and predators have this color blindness then orange and green would have the same effectiveness and whichever trait comes out first. If a prey/predator evolved to have better color vision then it would quickly become a disadvantage and after millions of years it’s possible they evolve to have green fur.
There could be other benefits like being easier to attract mates.
Also some animals can see infrared, so even if their fur was perfect for the environment they could still have issues by being spotted, in which case the color doesn’t matter as much and the colors for mating becomes more important.
Edit: Wording.
Related to this - all fabrics used by the military need to be both Berry-amendment compliant, and NIR compliant. What that means is that, first, they need to be made in the USA (because you don’t want to outsource military equipment if you end up going to war with the country that makes shit for you), and second, it needs to not show up like a sore thumb under infrared light, A lot of fabrics and dyes will show up as hot spots under IR, which means that they show up great with night vision. NIR-compliant fabrics will still appear camouflaged under IR.
That’s why those nylon-cotton blend Crytek combat pants are something like $450, when the Chinese knock-offs made in poly-cotton are about $70.
As a biologist, I’m always so happy with how versed your average Lemming is on evolution versus the bad place.
I’m not exactly average, but I’m definitely not a biologist lol
I’ve also heard green coloring is hard to achieve for mammals, but iirc the source was some tumblr post so take that with a grain of salt.
A) Evolution is not directed. If a pre-tiger happens to be a more advantageous colour, it will have more offspring. There is no goal.
B) An orange tiger has the same camouflage from its prey’s point of view as a green one, which is the thing that really matters. There is only one species a tiger is afraid of, and it’s humans. I would wager that the orange also happens to act as a signal colour, both to other tigers and other predators (such as humans). Less run-ins and less territorial dispute sound pretty good.
I don’t know any animal with green fur. Reptiles and birds, sure. Maybe green fur does not work 🤷
Thanks, eyes!
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