- #1
grisly
- 7
- 1
How come mammals are so "drab", compared to what is typically seen in the other major animal taxa?
In a bit more detail, what I mean is this: The feathers of birds, the skins of amphibians, the scales of reptiles and fish, the carapaces of insects and spiders, all of those seem to fundamentally have access to more or less the whole colour gamut, both in hue and in saturation. The fur of mammals, by contrast, seems to be confined to a relatively small region of the spectrum ("redwards" of yellow?) and to saturations from moderate to low. To put it another way, if you give a painter a palette with nothing more than black and white and a medium red and a medium yellow, they'd still be able to mix all the tints, tones, and shades they need to paint any mammal they can think of.
Discussions of both the physiological and the evolutionary circumstances (if any) explaining this would be very much appreciated! :)
In a bit more detail, what I mean is this: The feathers of birds, the skins of amphibians, the scales of reptiles and fish, the carapaces of insects and spiders, all of those seem to fundamentally have access to more or less the whole colour gamut, both in hue and in saturation. The fur of mammals, by contrast, seems to be confined to a relatively small region of the spectrum ("redwards" of yellow?) and to saturations from moderate to low. To put it another way, if you give a painter a palette with nothing more than black and white and a medium red and a medium yellow, they'd still be able to mix all the tints, tones, and shades they need to paint any mammal they can think of.
Discussions of both the physiological and the evolutionary circumstances (if any) explaining this would be very much appreciated! :)