Role in The Food Chain
It has been speculated that gulls are "flushed" pink when molting, especially in areas with farm-raised salmon. However, not enough is known about the relationship between astaxanthin and plumage. For example, cardinals seem to produce astaxanthin from carotenoids when molting, even when fed primarily seed with natural yellow dye.
Lobsters, shrimp, and some crabs turn red when cooked because the astaxanthin, which was bound to the protein in the shell, becomes free as the protein denatures and unwinds. The freed pigment is thus available to absorb light and produce the red color.
Read more about this topic: Astaxanthin
Famous quotes containing the words role, food and/or chain:
“Our role is to support anything positive in black life and destroy anything negative that touches it. You have no other reason for being. I don’t understand art for art’s sake. Art is the guts of the people.”
—Elma Lewis (b. 1921)
“Go to the ant, you lazybones; consider its ways, and be wise. Without having any chief or officer or ruler, it prepares its food in summer, and gathers its sustenance in harvest.”
—Bible: Hebrew, Proverbs 6:6-8.
“To avoid tripping on the chain of the past, you have to pick it up and wind it about you.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)