Nature boasts its own red, white and blue combinations | ECOVIEWS

Want to mix ecology and the celebration of the Fourth of July? Your local horticulturist can offer you a seed mix of plants sporting red, white and blue flowers. Pansies, petunias and camellias would fill the bill, though not as native flora.

Most of these popular garden plants are hybrid concoctions long removed genetically from their ancestors in Europe, South America and Asia, respectively. Also, the seasonal timing for flowering may be off for early July, and you are unlikely to see all three colors on a single flower.

Animals, on the other hand, from invertebrates to mammals can provide the right color scheme on a single individual. Commonly recognized ones are blue crabs, wild turkeys and scarlet macaws.

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In Hawaii, a bird called the red-crested cardinal, a species introduced from South America, has a bright red head, white body and bluish-gray wings.

Turtles also make the cut for patriotic coloration. The male red-crowned roof turtle of India develops red and white stripes with blueish patches on its head during the breeding season.

Males of the small, rare and endangered fish known as the redfin darter include dramatic bands of red, white and blue on the fins during their mating season. Some individuals of the popular aquarium fish known as bettas also come in a colorful mix of red, white and blue, but these fit into the horticultural plant category of artificial selective breeding.

Animals display colors for various reasons. When the two sexes of a species differ dramatically in color, a common behavioral formula asserts that males vie for females with vivid seasonal coloration that is more likely to attract a mate.

Mandrill baboons, which technically are monkeys of the African tropics and unrelated to the more widespread baboons found throughout much of the continent, are arguably the most naturally colorful mammal in the world. The male mandrill’s courting colors of a striking red stripe of a nose broadly bordered by breathtaking blue above a white beard rival any courtship display among other terrestrial vertebrates.

Research by Joanna M. Setchell and E. Jean Wickings of the University of Cambridge suggests that the intensity of facial colors of a male mandrill are a signal of rank within a troop. Not only do females appear to prefer brightly colored males as mates, but males seem to associate facial color with that mandrill’s status.

Males will fight for dominance in a troop of mandrill baboons, and contests between individuals can result in the loser’s death. A male’s brightly colored face serves as an indicator of its superior combat ability.

Knowing your opponent’s potential is useful information before a fight begins. Such knowledge typically leads to a paler-faced male being submissive. Considering the impressively long canine teeth of an 80-pound male mandrill, backing down from a fight would appear to be a useful survival strategy for a less colorful, less fit individual.

Combinations of red, white and blue are notable, but beyond a strategy to attract the opposite sex, scientific explanations for some of these and other color displays have not yet been found. For example, males of blue crabs and macaws look similar to females, eliminating the likelihood that color would be related to courtship behavior.

Does such vivid coloration serve some survival function such as camouflage or a warning display to a would-be predator? Do the colors we perceive look different to other animals? For example, some insects can see the ultraviolet end of the spectrum, which is invisible to humans. And to some of a tiger’s large mammal prey, the orange fur of the tiger appears green, providing a more effective camouflage.

A wealth of color is available on nature’s palette, including some colors people cannot even see. With such a rainbow of possibilities before them, DNA geneticists may eventually create a dog with a red, white and blue tail or a cat with patriotic-colored whiskers. It wouldn’t surprise me. Those geneticists are an ingenious bunch.

Whit Gibbons is professor of zoology and senior biologist at the University of Georgia’s Savannah River Ecology Laboratory. If you have an environmental question or comment, email ecoviews@gmail.com.

This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: Nature boasts its own red, white and blue combinations | ECOVIEWS