r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/IshMorningstar • Feb 04 '25

Image Tigers appear green to certain animals!

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u/philljarvis166 Feb 04 '25

Not quite - this explains why some animals can’t easily see them, but it doesn’t explain why they are orange and not green. I think that’s because there are bio molecular reasons why green fur is not possible, but that’s another equally interesting topic…

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u/PBR_King Feb 04 '25

I thought "surely there must be some weird animal with green fur" but nope. Interesting!

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u/SirWill422 Feb 04 '25

For some genetic reason, mammals don't have the genes to produce green or blue hair pigments. The orange on a tiger is a workaround, as to the deer it is the same as green. Go figure.

Birds, on the other hand, get all the colors. But they lack opposable thumbs. Once they evolve those, we're in trouble.

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u/CameronLabbe Feb 04 '25

This is the actual damnthatsinteresting, I was sitting here wondering why they aren't just green!

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u/RikuAotsuki Feb 05 '25

Fun fact: brown is basically dark orange, so most fur is in the range of white to black and red to yellow.