Comments on: Blue House Sparrow of Oz {New Update/More Photos}

By: planettom

planettom — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 21:59:22 +0000

Maybe these birds are the rare blue crabs of sparrows.

I found some interesting reads about carotenoids, astaxanthin and crustacyanin. Just Google those terms if you are interested in learning more.

By: Criptidkid56

Criptidkid56 — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 13:56:14 +0000

my thoughts are either cross breeding, a disease or fungus, or a new speicies

By: korollocke

korollocke — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 03:31:12 +0000

why is this considered unusual? I see lots of blue birds out here. Probably due to a change in diet or enviorment, forced evolution/mutation if you will. Try putting blue gelatin in your garden sometime, interesting results.

By: Rogutaan

Rogutaan — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 01:44:48 +0000

I know companies dye/tatoo fish to make patterns. Furthermore, some fish are injected with anemone DNA to make vibrant colours like the GloFish.

However, if the birds are dyed, the colour will disapear after the birds molt. If they stay blue, than t has to be some sort of genetics. Maybe there is a recessive gene that makes the feathers blue? Or maybe they are artifically genetically altered?

By: Paul78

Paul78 — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 19:17:15 +0000

I remember on the comedy quiz show 8 out of 10 cats they showed a clip from the 80’s of a gentleman who lived in the Carribbean and loved the colourful birds and when he returned to Britain he decided his white doves at his large house were to plain so he employed a young man to dye them, blue, red, green and yellow. As stated above it with a explain the cockaoo as their domesticated but not the wild birds.

By: sketko

sketko — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 18:02:06 +0000

This blue House Sparrow is particularly cool because it really looks like the blue feathers are BLUE - structurally blue, not just dyed blue. They have the right look, like Bluebird or Blue-gray Gnatcatcher feathers. They seem to be growing in patterns that I have seen before with the white feathers of partial albino birds.

The Little Corellas (the white cockatoos in the next photos) look more like they have rubbed up against some kind of dye, or may even have been painted. I remember a few years ago in my area there were reports and photos of pink, orange, and yellow seagulls. These birds turned out to have been spray-painted by bored teenagers! Sometimes researchers mark white birds with dye, though they usually just put a spot on the back or breast. I know people in the US sometimes dye chicks and ducklings for Easter… do people do that with cockatoos in Australia???

By: CryptoInformant 2.0

CryptoInformant 2.0 — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 16:33:01 +0000

Oh, well I just learned something new today… and the Discovery Channel lied to me.

By: Alton Higgins

Alton Higgins — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 15:11:40 +0000

Jeremy,

Per your question: I don’t think so. Blue feathers, when mussed up, take on a kind of greyish appearance.

By: Paul78

Paul78 — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 12:10:40 +0000

I’m afraid you’ll find that a majority of the flamingos’ colouration comes from the algae and only partly from the shrimp who also eat the algae. Some zoos, years ago, only feed shrimp to their flamingos and they stayed white. It wasn’t until they introduced the algae to their diet that they became pink.

By: CryptoInformant 2.0

CryptoInformant 2.0 — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 05:13:43 +0000

Actually, Paul, Kuroneko was right - it comes from the shrimp they eat, not the algae they don’t.