h a l f b a k e r yI think, therefore I am thinking.
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This is more in the nature of a question than a crackpot solution but:
Why are there no animals with green fur? You would think it would be a handy colour since there is so much greenery around in which, you'd think, furry animals might like to secrete themselves. I know there is a kind of sloth which
promotes the growth of some kind of algae in its fur but the is only goes to prove the desirability of green as a colour for fur. Birds and reptiles and fish and insects and all kinds of invertabrates do green no problem, why not us mammals?
I suppose we could,these days, breed some, though if they ever escaped they would be hard to track down. I for one would love to have the niegborhoods first green cat.
(I've got another debate brewing - hair or fur, Dog = Hair/ Cat=Fur, is there a real differance and WHY!!!!... but frankly one needs to get a life!)
mrmarkcairns@hotmail.com
the nearest you might get.
http://www.lookout-...om/photos/wild7.jpg
[po, Apr 01 2006]
Maybe. maybe not.
http://wcco.com/wat...tory_313204722.html
[2 fries shy of a happy meal, Apr 01 2006]
you might like to try this wallpaper as an illustration of 2fries' meaning
http://codefromthe7...desktopearth_dl.asp
[po, Apr 01 2006]
Green kitten (left)
http://www.messybeast.com/freak-skin.htm
Caused by water polluted with copper. [jutta, Apr 01 2006]
[link]
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Welcome to the halfbakery. I seem to remember that blue and green in feathers are structural colours, produced by the thin-film interference rather than blue or green pigments. This may explain why these colours have not evolved in hair of fur. |
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they'd lose their babies in the grass which is not an evolutionary clever thing to do. |
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Unless the critter lives near the equator it would stand out like a sore thumb in the winter. |
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There is a news story about a pup born with green fur [link] but it could be a hoax. |
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I have actually wondered about this myself. It is possible that if something had brown or gray fur, it could blend in just about anywhere. Green would be limited to tropical rainforests. And some sloths do have grren fur, but that's because they have algae living in their fur. |
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Hmmm, does my bum look big in this light? |
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Answer to the question: Mammals (sp?) don't try to blend in with the green leaves of a tree, and grass, because in autumn and winter the leaves change colors and then they'd be screwed. |
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They generally have darker colored fur to blend in with the shadows and unchanging bark of the trees. In addition, forests generally look much greener from a distance. Step inside and you see much more brown because the leaves are above eye level. |
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is it minks that go white in winter? |
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Some sloths look green because they have moss growing in their fur. |
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Ermine, po. I think stoats and weasels both do it. |
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I knew it was an expensive fur |
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<throws green paint around just for the hell of it> |
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Allegedly, most other mammals don't see colors, which is why hunters get away with wearing blaze orange. So fur color really doesn't matter--tigers and zebras are examples of that. |
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Having contributed to this discussion, I can't give a fishbone for the lack of idea. Damn my ego. |
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I've been puzzled by this one for a while too. For example, I can't yet see a convincing reason why dark green fur wouldn't present an advantage in some environments - blend into shadows at night, into vegetation during the day. |
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(bigsleep, there's some links that are made to be broken.) |
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Snowshoe hares also change from Brown to white in winter. |
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Kermit has green fur. Therefore, if green fur conferred an environmental or evolutionary advantage, it would be present. |
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Not necessarily. Telekinesis would be rather handy, yet I have not seen it outside human imagination. |
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Same applies to wealthiness. How many
animals have evolved wealth? It's the sort
of thing that only sheep can pray to their
sheep deity for, but no sheep has ever
achieved the kind of evolutionarily
advantageous wealth that we see in films
and books and placemats. |
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I've seen cheese with green fur, if that helps. |
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I noticed quite a few of the swimmers at the Commonwealth Games with verdant-hued hair, but I suspect this is more to do with chlorine than evolution. |
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