Almost like our eyes evolved to give danger its own colour.
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Desperately need me a community just for tiger facts like this and pictures of tigers. Greatest of the Big Cats
Thank you for subscribing to Big Cat Facts
This must be utterly terrifying for them.
Would not green be the obvious route then?
AFAIK green is more expensive to produce. Plants use it since it's good at absorbing sunlight, but what's the advantage to a tiger, if their prey can't tell the difference?
Do the tigers know they are orange?
Probably not, the same way humans don't know we are striped.
Ist is possible to make the own pattern visible? Like with special Cameras and Light?
Do humans know tigers are green?
Asking the real questions
No, they too are dichromats
Meanwhile my colorblind ass:
This is also why hunting vests are bright orange. Easy for humans to spot, and deer get confused by there being a fucking tiger loose in New England.
Ok this makes complete sense now, thank you!
Apparently pink works as well, if a hunter wants a second color vest
That works on the same principle, except the deer thinks you're a panther.
Wouldn't a mutation in the deer sight to see orange be vastly evolutionary beneficial?
It could, but it might also lead to something harmful for the deer at the same time. I'm not sure if the gene affecting the deer's eyesight is known, but it could be a pleiotropic gene (a gene that influences multiple traits at once).
If that's the case, and the other effect is negative and somehow spreads through the population, it could become a future issue for the deer. Think about humansβwe lost the ability to produce our own vitamin C. Almost every other mammal can produce their own (except for hamsters). When this happened, it didnβt harm us right away, so it spread through the population. But over time, it led to issues that werenβt a problem before, like scurvy.
Same could happen to the deer.
Only in areas with tigers, and then it would only express itself enough if there were enough evolutionary pressure exclusively on that survival tactic.
As long as other causes of death happen to deer in tiger territories and as long as speed remains a good survival strategy, minor mutations that would only provide an advantage in extreme specific scenarios like a tiger stalking them wouldn't have a chance to be spread.
There's also a whole host of additional brain power that needs to be dedicated to more complex colour blending and processing, and that may add enough delay to offset any potential gain in recognizing a threat.
Presumably yes, but its still down to a roll of the dice whether a mutation like that happens in the first place, and whether the individuals who have that mutation live long enough to breed, and whether that mutation actually gets passed down, etc
Competitive advantage over their deer peers.
It's been far more important, evolution wise, to be agile and quick enough to avoid predators. Like a security camera can only tell you how someone was murdered.
Tigers are generally crepuscular which means theyβre most active around dawn or dusk, when the sun is very low in the sky. Their orange fur does not stand out so well when everything looks orange under the golden light of dawn.
Thank you, evolution, for allowing me to see orange so I can get an head start and outrun a mother fucking tiger!
outrun a mother fucking tiger
You only need to outrun your travelbuddy.
Do tigers themselves see themselves as orange, or are they genuinely surprised when humans easily spot them hiding in the grass?
My cats are surprised both by me seeing them sitting on an empty floor, and by other cats who they didn't see sitting on the floor.
So I can only conclude the answer is semi-perpetual amazement.
They do not, like almost all mammals they are dichromatic! It's mostly us and some primates that can see in three wavelengths. Although interestingly enough, fish and birds can see in four wavelengths. Makes me wonder if that contributed to smaller cats being mostly gray and black, to just reduce as much light as possible?
So was it just random that their fur is orange and not green? As both would help hunt prey just as well. Or is the advantage of being orange, that it wards away other tigers and predators that might otherwise muscle into its territory and create conflict.
Itβs also orange because mammals canβt produce green pigments, so orange is the next best thing if your prey is red-green colorblind.
Our primary outer protein is basically keratin, which can be tinted orange(carotene), beige (collagen) or brown/black (melanin).
The green pigment is a byproduct of bilirubin catabolism, which we don't have because we use a different pathway to metabolize and recycle it.
Oooh I just thought nature was fucking stupid
The green image of the tiger is terrifying. You wouldn't see it until it's eyes or teeth were baring down on you in a lush green forest. Thankfully humans weren't it's main prey and therefore it likely evolved to appear orange instead...