I’ve enjoyed looking at the huge variety of brightly colored organisms showcased on the Forum. And it occured to me that I can’t think of any mammals (at least in North America) that show true primary colors. Even those with markings described as “red” or “orange” are more of a rusty or earthy color (think red fox or taiga vole (aka yellow-cheeked vole). And why IS that, evolutionarily speaking? Do you have any observations of colorful mammals? Please share!
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Mandrills are rather colorful.
https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/43533-Mandrillus-sphinx
But it’s true that most mammals favor “earth tones.”
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There’s the monkey with the blue scrotum.
New meaning for blue balls.
They also have a weird brick red patch around their anus.
Red in the ass.
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Does the pink river dolphin count?
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See? That’s why I love this group. I never would’ve thought of this. It counts with me!
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Bright colors in nature are usually for one of a handful of purposes: warning that an organism is toxic, pretending to be a toxic organism, or attracting a mate. That last one tends to be in conflict with survival adaptations that favor inconspicuous colors to help hide from predators. Most mammals fall into the prey category, lack the toxicity found in other classes of animals, and have other means of attracting a mate (often expressed through scent and behavior). It’s typically more advantageous, evolutionarily-speaking, for them not to have bright colors, then.
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Spotted Quolls
Pink fairy armadillo.
I think I read somewhere that mammals (with the exception of mandrills) cannot synthesise “colourful” pigments. We can only produce pheomelanin (yellow/red) and eumelanin (black/brown)
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Humans wearing flashy clothes.
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Kerivoula picta (Painted Bat)
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A real-life Halloween mascot!
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Male mandrills have colorful butts and colorful attitudes…
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not quite to the point of your stated topic - but I was walking in a nearby city park this afternoon and someone was walking a standard Poodle, trimmed in that pom-pom looking poodle cut. And it was painted (I’m assuming with dog hair spray?) in bright almost clownish colors. I don’t see a lot of poodles around here. I see almost none with that type of cut. And I have never, in real life, seen a dog’s fur painted. The best part was, the walker (owner?) had orange hair. They didn’t make eye contact and I respected that so I didn’t interact.
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And yet the right combination can produce blue or even green irises of the eyes. I find it interesting that cats and humans have such a wide range of eye colors when most mammals do not.
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except for squirrels and maybe rabbits, i usually have to wait until it starts to get dark to start to see non-human, non-domesticated/-feral mammals in my area, at least on land. so i would guess that being colorful in the dark wouldn’t be very useful. most mammals fluoresce under UV though. so they can be quite colorful in the right light.
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Most of the examples offered so far, the bright colors are in the skin (or eyes) but not the fur. Perhaps the structure of hair makes it hard to achieve structural colors, which account for bright colors in many other animals, especially in bird feathers?
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I agree that since many mammals are nocturnal, bright flashy colors are not needed. Mammals are often more scent-oriented also. Diurnal birds can often be very colorful but nocturnal birds have mostly muted colors.
I recall some Asian squirrels are rather brightly colored but forget the species.
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I think you are thinking about the giant flying squirrels.
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The Painted Bat is bright orange. I have seen it, but it was buzzing around so fast that I couldn’t photograph it.