Birds-of-Paradise Can Emit Light Through Their Feathers
Birds-of-Paradise Can Emit Light Through Their Feathers
This story was originally published in The Guardian and appears here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.
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Bioluminescence as camouflage? I guess for dappled light and surrounding flora?
Sexual selection, by making themselves look extra-fancy thus proving they have enough resources to spare to make the fanciness.
For camouflage? Please eli5.
https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_selection
It might be camouflage, I am just guessing, but my first assumption is that the males are showing that they have some resources to spare to develop fancy features including glowing ornaments, and the females are picking the males with the glowiest ornaments because it indicates the ones that are doing well and thus have good genes.
Yup, that seems to be in line with the article
Male birds-of-paradise often have these patches next to stark black [or] dark plumage, so the added effect of biofluorescence may aid in making these signal areas even brighter while being used during displays,” added Martin.
For the camouflage side, they said this
In females, however, the phenomenon might have a different function. “The location and patterns of their biofluorescent plumage of many species are much more in line with its possible use as camouflage,” she said.
I'm curious what that refers to. Maybe it would look like sunlight filtering through the leaves?
That was my thought, "dappled light." I know non-native English speakers may not know that word, my apologies.
I understand the male reasons, thank you. They didn't explicitly state reasons for female bioluminescence, hence my question/guess.