Some birds get the red and yellow pigments in their plumage from their diet. For example, flamingos acquire the characteristic rose from its diet of shrimp and algae. The reds and yellows are created by pigments called carotenoids, which come from food.
Nevertheless, parrots are different: Their feather colors don’t depend on food-derived pigments, but instead get their warm tones from a particular group of pigments called «psittacofulvins,» a study published in the journal Royal Society Open Science.
Parrots use the same molecules to create magenta, red, and orange plumage colors, and nearly identical molecules to make yellow plumage, but these molecules create different colors depending on how they are physically arranged within the feather structure.
Until now, it has been a mystery how exactly these special pigments do their job.
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colorful riddle
According to the aforementioned research, the fact that parrots can create color by arranging molecules raises an interesting evolutionary question. Laser analysis shows that the same pigment molecules can turn a parrot’s feathers yellow or red, depending on their arrangement.
Parrots biochemically synthesize their color molecules, which are known as psittacofulvins. But when psittacofulvins are extracted from feathers and analyzed by curious scientists, they appear orange when put into solution.
Then, Where do the reds of parrot plumage come from? According to the study, parrots combine chemistry and physics of psittacofulvins to create a range of brilliant colors.
During his work in this regard, researcher Jonathan Barnsley noticed that the feathers of some species of parrots they absorbed ultraviolet light, which is invisible to humans, and re-emitted it as visible colored lightknown as fluorescence.
How and why this happens is a mystery, but Barnsley suspects that this peculiarity also depends on the pigment disposition. mMeanwhile, scientists might be able to take a few tricks from these feathered friends. Instead of designing expensive new molecules, they could find new ways to tune or rearrange simpler and cheaper materials. «Nature starts with simple materials and through interactions results in really complex materials,» notes Barnsley; adding, «I think we can learn a lot from that.»
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