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Why blue animals are so rare
- sqlynx01 2y ago[flagged]
- _yb2s 2y agoI was hoping to see something about velella, they have a shockingly brilliant blue. Weird that this website seems broken with an un dismissable popup on an iphone… not exactly a rare user device.
- mikewarot 2y agoJust saw a Blue Jay last week. Chicory has nice blue flowers. Both are common in Chicagoland.
- cjensen 2y agoThere are many birds which are blue, but none of them have blue pigments [1]. It's a light-scattering effect. [1] https://blog.education.nationalgeographic.org/2016/05/09/there-is-no-such-thing-as-a-blue-bird/ https://blog.education.nationalgeographic.org/2016/05/09/the...
- kayodelycaon 2y agoImportant bit from the article: When white light strikes a blue feather, the keratin pattern causes red and yellow wavelengths to cancel each other out, while blue wavelengths of light reinforce and amplify one another and reflect back to the beholder’s eye … [D]ifferent shapes and sizes of these air pockets and keratin make different shades of blue.”
- TinkersW 2y agoAll color is a light scattering effect.. this article makes zero sense to me..
- Myrmornis 2y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structural_coloration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structural_coloration seems like a decent explanation.
- ortusdux 2y ago"Unlike other bees, they prefer to live alone and not in busy hives. " IIRC, the vast majority of bees are solitary (90%?)
- BenjiWiebe 2y agoIs that 90% of bees, or 90% of bee species? I think around 90% of the bees I see are of a non-solitary species.
- thrdbndndn 2y agoIsn't it pretty common in marine animals? Lots of fish, dolphins, whales, etc. Or do they count as grey?
- cubefox 2y agoOnly cartoon fish are blue.
- gilleain 2y agoBlue tang?
- kokanee 2y agoThere are two interesting cases of blue fish in my home state. 1. The Beardslee Trout, which exists only in a single lake in the world: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beardslee_trout https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beardslee_trout. Most photos online of these fish, including the Wikipedia thumbnail, are not representative of the stunning color of these fish in person, and are most likely not Beardslees at all. The lake itself looks like blue gatorade, and the fish have obviously adapted accordingly. 2. Lingcod, a fraction of which are a crazy alien blue color not only outside but throughout the flesh. https://oregonmarinereserves.com/2021/08/31/lingcod/ https://oregonmarinereserves.com/2021/08/31/lingcod/. This phenomenon applies to a handful of species, but lingcod is the most well-known.
- snoutie 2y agoAlso think so. Plenty of fish are vibrant blue, the blue whale is grayish blue but still blue. Also plenty of birds are blue are they not? And I totally forgot about butterflies and other insects as well
- anjel 2y agoOne in two million lobsters is blue https://allthatsinteresting.com/blue-lobster https://allthatsinteresting.com/blue-lobster
- robofanatic 2y agoWhile growing up in Asian country, butterfly pea plants with bright blue flowers were common.
- elevaet 2y agoThey make an amazing brilliant tea!
- s1mplicissimus 2y agoor was it ... the white jade bush?
- elevaet 2y agoNo, butterfly tea: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/2c/ac/2c/2cac2c42209b54ab9daae13551fe9e90.jpg https://i.pinimg.com/originals/2c/ac/2c/2cac2c42209b54ab9daa... If you add an acid to it (like lemon or lime) it turns to the beautiful purple colour you see on the right. But I think there may be a joke going over my head here...
- twism 2y agolots of blue birds
- twism 2y ago"Blue birds, blue jays, cerulean warblers, peacocks: all blue birds, but none of them are actually blue" I stand corrected
- lupusreal 2y ago> none of them are actually blue The article is just trying to be controversial or something; they are actually blue. Structure colors are no less real than pigment colors. It's not an optical illusion or some glitch in human perception, bounce white light off a bluejay and pass it through a prism, a strong blue line will be apparent. That blue light really is there, therefore they really are blue. This notion that only colors coming from pigments are true colors is completely arbitrary nonsense.
- nullc 2y agoThey're "true colors" but they aren't the same. Pigment colors you can generally grind up and turn into a paint, structural colors not so much. Structural colors are also often angle and polarization sensitive, not so with pigment colors.
- cpfohl 2y agoMy favorite blue animal: https://duckduckgo.com/?t=h_&q=Dendrobates+Tinctorius+Azureus&iax=images&ia=images https://duckduckgo.com/?t=h_&q=Dendrobates+Tinctorius+Azureu...
- user070223 2y agoThe Sinai agama turns blue during the breeding season to attract females and it might be why blue connote to ribaldry
- pvaldes 2y agoGlaucus atlanticus
- peanut_worm 2y agoBlue jays are a pretty easy example of structural coloration
- BurningFrog 2y agoSomeone told me that chefs use blue bandaids, because there is no blue food.
- nytesky 2y agoNot just colored blue, but embedded metal to be detectable https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/5dg5qs/til_that_there_are_blue_bandaids_that_have_metal/?rdt=46992 https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/5dg5qs/til_t...
- Jun8 2y agoHere’s a good answer from SE: https://biology.stackexchange.com/questions/56476/why-are-so-few-foods-blue https://biology.stackexchange.com/questions/56476/why-are-so... (spoiler: we don’t know). But the second answer speculates that blue light was the most available to the ancestors of current plants (due to properties of Earth’s atmosphere) so they evolved to absorb it. Related question is why plants are green: https://biology.stackexchange.com/questions/450/why-do-plants-have-green-leaves-and-not-red https://biology.stackexchange.com/questions/450/why-do-plant...
- Amorymeltzer 2y agoThe linked post—<https://set.adelaide.edu.au/news/list/2019/08/20/why-is-the-colour-blue-so-rare-in-nature https://set.adelaide.edu.au/news/list/2019/08/20/why-is-the-...>—is much better about answering the question, rather than listing some examples. Basically: - Blue is rare in plants since it means leaving high energy behind. - Many animals are a color because of there food, and see above. - Thus, any blue is trickier, and usually done via scattering and mixing rather than a pigment. "The only exception in nature is the obrina olivewing butterfly, which is the only known animal to produce a true blue pigment."
- pvaldes 2y ago> "The only exception in nature is the obrina olivewing butterfly, which is the only known animal to produce a true blue pigment." That is a bold claim, but a false one. A few butterfly species share that pigment. Mussels also have other blue pigments based in carothenes that don't depend on iridiscence.
- dotancohen 2y agoAlso, there is a snail that was revered millennia ago for some blue ink that could be extracted from it. Several religions, notably Judaism among them because it is still around today, attach significance to this difficult-to-obtain colour.
- lores 2y agoThat's the dye from Hexaplex Trunculus, but it's more of a bluish purple than a true blue. There seems to be modern ways to turn it into a true blue, but whether the ancients had an unknown method is debated and unproven. It's worth noting that colour names in ancient times were a lot more blurry than now (the famous sea the colour of wine of Homer), and blue is still one of the most blurry.
- jcynix 2y agoThe article mentions plants too. But I can list a number of blue plants in my vicinity (OK, sometimes a touch of purple too) or even in the garden: [Centaurea cyanus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centaurea_cyanus?wprov=sfla1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centaurea_cyanus?wprov=sfla1) [Digitalis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digitalis?wprov=sfla1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digitalis?wprov=sfla1) [Centaurea](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centaurea?wprov=sfla1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centaurea?wprov=sfla1) [Scabiosa](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scabiosa?wprov=sfla1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scabiosa?wprov=sfla1) [Phacelia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phacelia?wprov=sfla1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phacelia?wprov=sfla1) and last but not least many varieties of [Campanula](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campanula?wprov=sfla1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campanula?wprov=sfla1)
- spullara 2y ago3 of those I would call purple rather than blue.
- jcynix 2y agoI agree, but purple seems to be a similarly rare color IMO. I could offer [Chicory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicory?wprov=sfla1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicory?wprov=sfla1), [Myosotis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myosotis?wprov=sfla1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myosotis?wprov=sfla1) and [Borage](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borage?wprov=sfla1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borage?wprov=sfla1) as replacements ...
- sdeframond 2y agoSome flowers are blue indeed. They are made to stand out, so it is like they are a purposeful exception to the rule
- RoyalHenOil 2y agoBlue flowers are extremely common because pollinators are attracted to them. I am pretty sure that they were referring to the plant itself being blue (like leaves and stems), not the flowers.
- datameta 2y agoFascinating article. But early on I had one question - why is a blue that is made by sunlight hitting hair nanostructures considered a "simulation" thereby differentiating it from color made through sunlight interaction with biochemistry of surfaces and subsurfaces? To draw that out further, by the same logic we might consider properties of human-made metamaterials also simulations?
- ChainOfFools 2y agoI believe all of the colors of butterfly wings, and of all feathered animals are produced in the same way? I've always assumed that "simulation" has a local definition in the study of biological color reproduction, where light interactions with ultra fine structure at the atomic level is the default, or perhaps maybe on the time scale of evolution, the oldest means of reproducing color. Contrast this witb a much coarser structural phenomenon manifesting at a level much closer to macroscopic is thus considered to be a "cheaper" simulation of that effect, in order to derive its same selective benefits but with less of a radical genetic shift required for the production of the right proteins etc.
- yencabulator 2y agoThe article says "manipulate the light that shines on them that simulates their signature blue look". https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/simulation https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/simulation meaning number 4, "Assuming an appearance which is feigned, or not true.". I believe what they are trying to communicate (pretty poorly) is that the hairs are not blue as such, but in certain circumstances can manipulate light into the blue-violet spectrum. Think of it this way: a prism isn't any of the rainbow colors, but can manipulate light into such.
- jcynix 2y agoAs for animals, they need to avoid predators. I'd say that blue isn't the best color to hide in most areas. So selection should favor other colors, unless the color is used as a warning, e.g. to signal a poisonous creature.
- barrell 2y agoAlso IIRC (and cursory searches seem to agree) blue is the most common/prominent color other animals see
- esafak 2y agoOn a related note, blue LEDs are also the most rare, for engineering reasons, and their production led to a Nobel Prize: https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/2014/press-release/ https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/2014/press-release...
- SushiHippie 2y agoVideo about the history of blue LEDs by veritasium: https://youtube.com/watch?v=AF8d72mA41M https://youtube.com/watch?v=AF8d72mA41M
- knodi123 2y ago"...once Nakamura succeeded in creating a commercially viable prototype, 3 orders of magnitude (1000 times) brighter than previously successful blue LEDs, Nichia pursued developing the marketable product. The company's gross receipt surged from just over ¥20 billion (≈US$200 million) in 1993 to ¥80 billion (≈US$800 million) by 2001, 60 percent of which was accounted for by sales of blue LED products." And IIRC, in return for that he got a $180 bonus from his employer, and a bit later, a Nobel prize.
- zepearl 2y agoMy favourite flower, which I have just discovered: Phacelia (blue/violet color) ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phacelia_tanacetifolia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phacelia_tanacetifolia ) 1) Seeds easy to find in most stores. 2) Each strand has an array of flowers which bloom serially => quite long blooming timespan (and damage by bad weather is limited if it affected only the flowers). 3) Bumblebees absolutely love them (this year I put exclusively Phacelia seeds into 1 of my 2 big pots on the balcony, with max seed density, and often there were up to 10 bumblebees at once per pot checking them), and I absolutely love bumblebees (they look clumsy, they're kind of funny + they absolutely ignore me, respectively when they happen to fly in my direction and they notice me they take a turn as soon as their flight envelope allows them to) 4) This might be just random or caused by some other factor like weather/neighbours/whatever, anyway: since I planted this year Phacelia flowers and the bumblebees started coming I have hardly seen any wasps nor especially hornets (I've seen twice a hornet flying by, but it took a large curve from my balcony - during the same timespan at the other sides of my flat I noticed four times hornets investigating in front of the windows). Last year (without Phacelia/bumblebees) I had a lot more problems with wasps&hornets => maybe wasps & hornets noticed the bumblebees and thought "ah, already taken/busy!" and therefore marked my balcony as a no-go zone? EDIT: I recommend the app "PlantNet" for Android ( https://play.google.com/store/apps/dev?id=8292161998699316373&hl=de https://play.google.com/store/apps/dev?id=829216199869931637... ) & iOS ( https://apps.apple.com/ch/app/plantnet/id600547573 https://apps.apple.com/ch/app/plantnet/id600547573 ): take a picture of your plant/flower and you get the name.
- crmd 2y ago>Organisms that appear blue must absorb very small amounts of energy, while reflecting high-energy blue light. Since penetrating the molecules that are capable of absorbing this energy is a complex process, the color blue is less common than other colors in the natural world. I’m not a biologist, but these sentences immediately reminded me of reading articles about my company/technology after press briefings and feeling like they butchered a basic concept (or more correctly, I failed to explain it in an accessible way). Like, the sentences are grammatically correct but don’t make technical sense.
- elcritch 2y agoYou’re not wrong. It appears to be a very garbled technical explanation. Mainly that organisms need to absorb low frequency/energy light while reflecting higher frequency/energy light. I’m guessing that chemically that’s harder to do.
- gnu8 2y agoI think this is closer to what was intended: Molecules that appear blue must absorb very small amounts of energy, while reflecting high-energy blue light. Since assembling the molecules that are capable of absorbing this energy is a complex process, the color blue is less common than other colors in the natural world.
- user070223 2y agoReminder to everyone: Plants are green(On earth) because they reflect the green color (which the sun spectrum is strongest) because they have probably adapted to better regulate different lightning condition during the day, for this they use two different pigments (chlorophyll a(blue), chlorophyll b(red); or other pairs)
- setopt 2y agoOne of the best ways to improve crop yields via genetic engineering might be to create black plants.
- al_borland 2y agoIf that was optimal, I would expect it would be the standard by now. Not through genetic engineer, but through basic evolution over millions of years.
- ianferrel 2y agoEvolution is optimizing for survival, not crop yield.
- buzzm 2y agoExactly; see pollinators comment above. Although as tech progresses... perhaps we can make black plants as attractive to genetically modified pollinators. Do I sense a slippery slope here?
- bawolff 2y agoHaving more energy available (all things being equal which they aren't) is advantous to both survival and crop yields.
- aydyn 2y agoonly if more energy doesnt come at the cost of something else, like water retention
- User23 2y agoThere are also no blue pigments in any plant. The various blueish flowers use other tricks to reflect blue light.
- RoyalHenOil 2y agoTo be fair, indigo is a blue pigment and it is present in many different plant species. (Mind you, it does not make the plant blue; it only becomes blue after exposure to oxygen.)
- fsckboy 2y agoblueberries. and the pH sensitive stuff in red cabbage juice.
- karaterobot 2y agoHmm, interesting. I thought it was like with popsicles, how the blue ones get eaten first.
- DarkNova6 2y agoGreen snakes are technically blue. They have yellow pigments together with a blue scales. After their death, the yellow pigments fade, leaving a blue husk of a snake.
- esperent 2y agoAre blue animals rare? They are certainly not that rare as a casual search turns up hundreds of photos of blue lizards, butterflies, Beatles, spiders, birds, starfish, fish, whales, sharks, and other miscellaneous sea and land creatures.
- 2-3-7-43-1807 2y agoprompt to ChatGPT 4o: there are very few blue colored animals. also it was very difficult to develop LEDs emitting blue colored light. are those two observations technically related? can you summarize the technical relationship in a paragraph of few sentences? answer: The rarity of blue color in animals and the difficulty in developing blue LEDs are technically related due to the higher energy associated with blue light. Producing materials or structures that can efficiently emit or reflect blue light is challenging because blue light has shorter wavelengths and higher energy, requiring precise and stable materials. In animals, this results in the reliance on complex structural coloration rather than pigments. Similarly, the development of blue LEDs required breakthroughs in materials science to create stable semiconductors capable of emitting high-energy blue light, such as gallium nitride.
- dse1982 2y agoMy cousin wrote a book about this topic (it is not only about blue animals but the general scarcity of blue in the natural environment): https://www.amazon.de/Blue-Science-Secrets-Natures-English-ebook/dp/B0CQKC42SP https://www.amazon.de/Blue-Science-Secrets-Natures-English-e... I never gave this much thought before but the book quite successfully managed to interest me in its subject and lead to me understanding some of the underlying mechanisms (which lay all outside my domain as a software developer).
- xtiansimon 2y agoReminds me of Truite au Bleu or blue trout. It’s a recipe for cooking fresh trout which supposedly originated in the Alps. “Why Trout Is Turning Blue in an Old Garage in Queens” It’s the best way to cook trout. You’re welcome. https://www.vice.com/en/article/kbxdv9/why-trout-is-turning-blue-in-a-old-garage-in-queens https://www.vice.com/en/article/kbxdv9/why-trout-is-turning-...