Pigments in Animals
Pigmentation is used by many animals for protection, by means of camouflage, mimicry, or warning coloration. Some animals including fish, amphibians and cephalopods use pigmented chromatophores to provide camouflage that varies to match the background.
Pigmentation is used in signalling between animals, such as in courtship and reproductive behaviour. For example, some cephalopods use their chromatophores to communicate.
The photopigment rhodopsin intercepts light as the first step in the perception of light.
Skin pigments such as melanin may protect tissues from sunburn by ultraviolet radiation.
However, some biological structures in animals, such as heme groups that help to carry oxygen in the blood, are colored as a result of their structure. Their color does not have a protective or signalling function.
Read more about this topic: Plant Pigments
Famous quotes containing the word animals:
“We know what the animals do, what are the needs of the beaver, the bear, the salmon, and other creatures, because long ago men married them and acquired this knowledge from their animal wives. Today the priests say we lie, but we know better.”
—native American belief, quoted by D. Jenness in “The Carrier Indians of the Bulkley River,” Bulletin no. 133, Bureau of American Ethnology (1943)