thephotosocietyのインスタグラム(thephotosociety) - 9月13日 03時03分

Photo: @Robert Clark | A view of a Birds Eye vs a Birds Eye view

This is a dove’s exposed flesh eye ring, it has many purposes for the way it looks.

The function itself is partially to regulate temperature, as the blood vessel density in the fleshy eye ring is very high and serves to bring down the overall temperature of the bird. In flight, blood courses through the eye ring and other exposed skin and is cooled down by the air that passes over it. It may have also evolved as an aesthetic portion of the bird’s sexual attractiveness for a mate.

In many birds, skin coloration such as this is the result of optical interactions with biological nanostructures or, in other words, the microscopic structure of skin. Such structural colors occur in the skin, bill (ramphotheca), legs and feet (podotheca) in about 129 avian genera in 50 families from 16 avian orders.

Structurally colored skin is present in more than 250 bird species, or about 2.5% of all bird species. Examination of the color, anatomy, and nanostructure indicates that color, including ultraviolet, dark blue, light blue, green and yellow hues, is produced by coherent scattering (i.e., constructive interference) of light from arrays of parallel collagen fibers in the skin (dermis) Scattering, in this case, simply means that light deviates from a straight path.

The colored skin of many birds is due to pigments, molecules that differentially absorb and emit wavelengths of visible light. Carotenoids are the pigments responsible for colorful skin (as well as feathers) in many birds, and typically generate a red, orange, or yellow hue. Birds cannot synthesize carotenoids so must acquire them in their diet resulting, variation skin & feather.

#eyes
#feathers
#skin
#bird
@Robert Clark @thephotosociety @InstitueArtist @ナショナルジオグラフィック

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