... of carotenoids. However, a paucity of long-term dietary manipulation studies means that little is known of the role of individual carotenoid compounds in ontogenetic colour change. We know even less about the influence of individual compounds at different doses (dose effects). The present study aimed to use...

..., predation, defence and thermoregulation, but are thought to lack many types of pigments common in other animals. Ommochromes, bilins and eumelanin have been identified in spiders, but not carotenoids or melanosomes. Here, we combined optical microscopy, refractive index matching, confocal Raman...

... with light such as birefringence, differential reflection or scattering. We describe a novel biological polarizer in a marine crustacean based on linear dichroism of a carotenoid molecule. The red-colored, dichroic ketocarotenoid pigment astaxanthin is deposited in the antennal scale of a stomatopod...

... hypodermis. Despite the difference in colour triggered by this adaptive response, total levels of the predominant carotenoid pigment, astaxanthin, are not modified, suggesting that another mechanism is regulating this phenomenon. Astaxanthin binds to a specific protein called crustacyanin (CRCN...

...Elin Sild; Tuul Sepp; Marju Männiste; Peeter Hõrak SUMMARY Carotenoid-based integument colouration is extremely widespread in the animal kingdom. It has been hypothesized that carotenoid colouration is used for communicating the health status of the bearers because carotenoids are efficient...

... was measured over two separate years in response to two important modifiers of crustacean shell colour, dietary carotenoid and background substrate colour. Changes in shell colour during this colour transition period were influenced more greatly by other factors independent of diet or background substrate...

... microspectrophotometry avian colour vision carotenoid photon catch spectral tuning A feature of the retinal photoreceptors of many vertebrates is a large spherical organelle, commonly referred to as an `oil droplet' because of its high lipid content ( Johnston and Hudson,1976 ), located in the ellipsoid...

... selected traits I review the evolution of colour patterns in birds with a view to assessing the magnitude of plastic responses in their development, and to ask how such responses may have influenced genetic evolution. The common colour pigments in birds are carotenoids and melanins. Both are used in social...

..., the natural precursor to the primary red carotenoid pigment in house finch plumage. All males grew drab plumage, but males with MG infection grew feathers that were significantly less red (more yellow), less saturated, and less bright than males that were not infected. MG targets upper respiratory and ocular...