Dinosaur origin of egg color: oviraptors laid blue-green eggs

Dinosaur origin of egg color: oviraptors laid blue-green eggs

Protoporphyrin (PP) and biliverdin (BV) give rise to the enormous diversity in avian egg coloration. Egg color serves several ecological purposes, including post-mating signaling and camouflage. Egg camouflage represents a major character of open-nesting birds which accomplish protection of their unhatched offspring against visually oriented predators by cryptic egg coloration. Cryptic colorati...

Ancient origin and maternal inheritance of blue cuckoo eggs

Maternal inheritance via the female-specific W chromosome was long ago proposed as a potential solution to the evolutionary enigma of co-existing host-specific races (or 'gentes') in avian brood parasites. Here we report the first unambiguous evidence for maternal inheritance of egg colouration in the brood-parasitic common cuckoo Cuculus canorus. Females laying blue eggs belong to an ancient (...

Flotation of blue-green algae using methylated egg ovalbumin

Attractive blue-green egg coloration and cuckoo-host coevolution

Recent evidence suggests that blue-green coloration of bird eggshells may be related to female and/or egg phenotypic quality, and that such colour may affect parental effort and therefore the nutritional environment of developing nestlings. Here we suggest that these relationships and the signal function of eggshell coloration would affect the outcome of coevolution between avian brood parasite...

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Consider two adolescents: Person One and Person Two. Person One has never used substances and exhibits relatively few behavioral (conduct) problems. On the other hand, Person Two uses substances frequently and more commonly exhibits poor conduct. If you were to guess, which of the individuals would you expect to have lower overall judgment and self-regulation? If you answered Person Two, your i...