Meanwhile my colorblind ass: Image
Tigers 🐅 🐯
Submitted 1 month ago by fossilesque@mander.xyz to science_memes@mander.xyz
https://mander.xyz/pictrs/image/3811ebb8-3415-4227-b3f7-ad55edeb4383.jpeg
Comments
bonsai@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 month ago
tetris11@lemmy.ml 1 month ago
Do tigers themselves see themselves as orange, or are they genuinely surprised when humans easily spot them hiding in the grass?
Tar_alcaran@sh.itjust.works 1 month ago
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.
Initiateofthevoid@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 month ago
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?
goodwipe@lemmy.ca 1 month ago
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…
InverseParallax@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Umm, I’ve seen tigers.
You need to explain to them that we’re not prey, but they haven’t figured it out yet.
tja@sh.itjust.works 1 month ago
I think the key word is “main”.
humanspiral@lemmy.ca 1 month ago
fish are friends not food.
JillyB@beehaw.org 1 month ago
I’m colorblind and the images are nearly identical. Good thing I’m not in tiger habitats very often.
vithigar@lemmy.ca 1 month ago
Same. Didn’t even realise they were different images until after I read the text.
m532@lemmygrad.ml 1 month ago
Those are different pictures?! Damn red-green colorblindness, gonna get me eaten by tigers
VivianRixia@piefed.social 1 month ago
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.
Reddfugee42@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Recall that evolution isn’t intelligent. Random mutations do random shit until one is accidentally successful. Random orange that appears green falls right into that scheme 😅
chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Tigers are generally crepuscular which means they’re 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.
JimVanDeventer@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Thank you, evolution, for allowing me to see orange so I can get an head start and outrun a mother fucking tiger!
jwt@programming.dev 1 month ago
outrun a mother fucking tiger
You only need to outrun your travelbuddy.
WhiskyTangoFoxtrot@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Especially if your travel buddy is your mother.
nialv7@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Better bring someone who’s colorblind 😈
Acamon@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Is that why cats can be so ginger and still good hunters? My orange stands out so much in the garden, but maybe to dichromatic mice he’s super stealthy?
Lyrl@lemm.ee 1 month ago
Elsewhere in the thread, someone said non-primate mammals (like mice) are dichromic (can’t see orange), but birds are quadchromic (see even more colors than trichromics like primates). Is your cat only a good mouse-hunter, and comparatively a bad bird-hunter?
Acamon@lemmy.world 1 month ago
He is! 95% mice, very occasional birds. I had attributed that to birds other advantages (mostly being able to harass him by flying at him but not low enough he can reach) but perhaps it’s also the colour!
jeena@piefed.jeena.net 1 month ago
Wouldn't a mutation in the deer sight to see orange be vastly evolutionary beneficial?
superniceperson@sh.itjust.works 1 month ago
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.
MonkderVierte@lemmy.ml 1 month ago
minor mutations that would only provide an advantage in extreme specific scenarios
Most north european can digest lactose.
apotheotic@beehaw.org 1 month ago
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
Xatolos@reddthat.com 1 month ago
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 humans—we lost the ability to produce our own vitamin C. Almost every other mammal can produce their own (except for hamsters). When this happened, it didn’t harm us right away, so it spread through the population. But over time, it led to issues that weren’t a problem before, like scurvy.
Same could happen to the deer.
meliaesc@lemmy.world 1 month ago
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.
hexabs@lemmy.world 1 month ago
And then soon we’d have green tigers.
uniquethrowagay@feddit.org 1 month ago
There are no green mammals because of some biology reason I can’t remember.
Churbleyimyam@lemm.ee 1 month ago
Competitive advantage over their deer peers.
Agent641@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Do the tigers know they are orange?
TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Do humans know tigers are green?
kamen@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Asking the real questions
i_dont_want_to@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 month ago
Probably not, the same way humans don’t know we are striped.
Actionschnils@feddit.org 1 month ago
Ist is possible to make the own pattern visible? Like with special Cameras and Light?
lugal@sopuli.xyz 1 month ago
No, they do are dichromates
MyNameIsAtticus@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Desperately need me a community just for tiger facts like this and pictures of tigers. Greatest of the Big Cats
Hikermick@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Thank you for subscribing to Big Cat Facts
itslilith@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 month ago
Subscribe
MyNameIsAtticus@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Oh hell yeah. Big Cats are the best
pseudo@jlai.lu 1 month ago
Feel free to open !bigcats or !tiger I’ll be your first follower.
MyNameIsAtticus@lemmy.world 1 month ago
I wish lol. I don’t have enough time to manage a community though. if someone else made one though i’d follow it instantly
MECHAGODZILLA2@midwest.social 1 month ago
Oooh I just thought nature was fucking stupid
Owlboi@lemm.ee 1 month ago
this sounds dumb. if that was the reason then why arent they just green so that theyre camoflaged to EVERY animal and not just those with bad eyes
Tar_alcaran@sh.itjust.works 1 month ago
Mammals don’t come in green. We have 2 colours available to us, in different amounts: eumelanin, which is dark brown to black, and pheomelanin, which is yellow/red. We can mix those up in any way, or none (for white), but it’ll never be green.
Now, many other animals don’t have green either, peacock feathers for example, have brown pigment, but they have a structure that makes it look green and blue from wave interference.
Unfortunately, you can’t really do that with fur, since you need to look at fur from all directions, not just the front.
So, mammals don’t get green fur.
renamon_silver@lemmy.wtf 1 month ago
Iampossiblyatwork@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Damn.
JPAKx4@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 month ago
Evolution is throwing things against the wall and seeing what sticks (by sticking I mean reproducing bc you have better traits). If every single one of their prey and predators have this color blindness then orange and green would have the same effectiveness and whichever trait comes out first. If a prey/predator evolved to have better color vision then it would quickly become a disadvantage and after millions of years it’s possible they evolve to have green fur.
There could be other benefits like being easier to attract mates.
Also some animals can see infrared, so even if their fur was perfect for the environment they could still have issues being spotted, in which case the color doesn’t matter as much and the colors for mating becomes more important.
HelixDab2@lemm.ee 1 month ago
Related to this - all fabrics used by the military need to be both Berry-amendment compliant, and NIR compliant. What that means is that, first, they need to be made in the USA (because you don’t want to outsource military equipment if you end up going to war with the country that makes shit for you), and second, it needs to not show up like a sore thumb under infrared light, A lot of fabrics and dyes will show up as hot spots under IR, which means that they show up great with night vision. NIR-compliant fabrics will still appear camouflaged under IR.
That’s why those nylon-cotton blend Crytek combat pants are something like $450, when the Chinese knock-offs made in poly-cotton are about $70.
SoleInvictus@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 month ago
As a biologist, I’m always so happy with how versed your average Lemming is on evolution versus the bad place.
felsiq@lemmy.zip 1 month ago
I’ve also heard green coloring is hard to achieve for mammals, but iirc the source was some tumblr post so take that with a grain of salt.
Phineaz@feddit.org 1 month ago
A) Evolution is not directed. If a pre-tiger happens to be a more advantageous colour, it will have more offspring. There is no goal.
B) An orange tiger has the same camouflage from its prey’s point of view as a green one, which is the thing that really matters. There is only one species a tiger is afraid of, and it’s humans. I would wager that the orange also happens to act as a signal colour, both to other tigers and other predators (such as humans). Less run-ins and less territorial dispute sound pretty good.
NewOldGuard@hexbear.net 1 month ago
Because evolution isn’t an intelligent or designed process, it’s largely random changes where the things that work lead to better survival rates. So it doesn’t matter that animals with more types of cone cells can see them easily, the adaptation was favorable for prey stalking so those are the only group of animals whose sight affected the tigers survivability.
blubfisch@discuss.tchncs.de 1 month ago
I don’t know any animal with green fur. Reptiles and birds, sure. Maybe green fur does not work 🤷
derfunkatron@lemmy.world 1 month ago
huf@hexbear.net 1 month ago
Mammals can’t do green. They can do orange easy
Toes@ani.social 1 month ago
Almost like our eyes evolved to give danger its own colour.
woodenghost@hexbear.net 1 month ago
9% of people with only one x-chromosome: same-picture
Zagorath@aussie.zone 1 month ago
Holy shit it’s that high? Red-green colourblindness is almost as common in men as left-handedness is?
Churbleyimyam@lemm.ee 1 month ago
This must be utterly terrifying for them.
Flocklesscrow@lemm.ee 1 month ago
“Why? I’ve always been orange.” - tigers
REDACTED@infosec.pub 1 month ago
Would not green be the obvious route then?
FooBarrington@lemmy.world 1 month ago
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?
latenightnoir@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 month ago
Thanks, eyes!
easily3667@lemmus.org 1 month ago
Get fucked tigers
LanguageIsCool@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Accidentally beautiful
peteypete420@sh.itjust.works 1 month ago
This kinda makes Lord Vetinari a little less cool tho…
Still pretty fun fact.
DandomRude@lemmy.world 1 month ago
TIL
JasonDJ@lemmy.zip 1 month ago
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.
Deepus@lemm.ee 1 month ago
I always wondered about that, thanks.
Lyrl@lemm.ee 1 month ago
Apparently pink works as well, if a hunter wants a second color vest
JasonDJ@lemmy.zip 1 month ago
That works on the same principle, except the deer thinks you’re a panther.
dryfter@lemm.ee 1 month ago
Ok this makes complete sense now, thank you!