I heard that many animals can change color by eating themselves, and they are familiar to us when they are colored. And this kind of operation?
It turns out that changes in the pigment cells in living organisms, or because of changes in the combination of certain chemicals, can cause animals to change color! This wave of operations sounds lofty, but in fact it is not difficult, mainly by "eating"!
Take a look at the changes in the graph
How can the color of a creature still change, and what does?
Pigments change the color of many organisms. The more widely used pigments in the biological world are chlorophyll and carotenoids...... Among them, there are more than 1,000 carotenoids known in the world, including carotene, astaxanthin, caraxanthin, and β-cryptoflavin...... Due to the difference in molecular structure, it takes on different colors from yellow to red.
And how do they appear in animals?
Astaxanthin in algae, bacteria and phytoplankton is absorbed and accumulated by crustaceans and then accumulated in fish and birds through the food chain.
Astaxanthin is the endpoint of carotenoid synthesis, and it can be stored directly in tissues without modification or biochemical transformation after entering the animal body, and has a strong pigmentation ability, which is why flamingos, salmon, boiled shrimp and some other animals appear red.
But......
Faded flamingos
Black and white flamingos
This simple appearance is unrecognizable!
That's right, beauty comes from eating, and flamingos will fade without small fish and shrimp rich in astaxanthin and other red carotenoids.
In the case of "malnutrition" and lack of astaxanthin, it can also convert a certain amount of red carotenoids in the body, and use the rest of the calendula, canthaxanthin, and fenniflavonoids...... Keep yourself bright to avoid becoming the least attractive gray bird in the courtship market.
And the bird has no color, because it has not yet learned to hunt on its own! Adult flamingos have a thin, sieve-like filter plate in their beak, the ctenophore, which filters food such as spirulina out of muddy water, so they are gray for a year or two before the baby flamingo grows this filter plate.
Some people have to ask, the milk they drink is red!
The "milk" of the bird is red, not blood, and the red color is because it contains a lot of canthaxanthin. However, the pigment is not directly visible, it is stored in the liver of the chicks, and it can only be transferred to the feathers when it grows up.
"Ghost animal" feeding method
The father regurgitates the milky nutrients from the sac and puts his mouth against the mother's head, and the juice is transported through the mother's head to the mouth, all the way into the nestling's mouth.
The power of pigments is powerful, and if you try to eat enough oranges and carrots, people will also be dyed and suffer from orange disease!
Oranges, loquats, mangoes, carrots, pumpkin, okra......
It is rich in carotene, the source of vitamin A, but it needs to be broken down by the liver in the body before it can be absorbed and utilized by the body. When carotene cannot be decomposed in time and exceeds the body's needs, it will accumulate in the body and suffer from orange disease, which will not only cause yellowing of the skin, but also affect liver function in serious cases. However, as long as you reduce your intake, the yellow color will slowly fade in 2-3 weeks.
Resourceful humans made early use of these pigments, that is, colorants.
Look at what you think is natural, but in fact, people use astaxanthin to engage in "small actions".
Astaxanthin masterpiece ↓
It turns out that so many organisms need carotenoids. However, different organisms store carotenoids in different forms and behave differently. Flamingos store most of their pigment in their skin and feathers, salmon stores most of their pigment in their muscles, and humans break down carotenoids without showing color, turning their skin yellow until they are beyond what the body needs.
So at the end of the day, creatures can really eat and eat and change color!