Animals change color after forest fires

Forest fires can seriously affect the environment. In some parts of the world, this disaster often occurs. Some animals have adapted by changing such colors and phenomena called “fire infection due to fire”.

The color that best suits an animal depending on their habitat. When the surroundings are green or covered with brown soil, wood and leaves, brown blue can be helpful. But when that environment is covered with ash, brown blue animals are easy to pay attention.

According to the study, some species evolved quickly to respond to a sudden change in the environment due to forest fires. One of those species is grasshoppers Titrix shruggedmentioned in many studies on fire infection due to fire.

Research in magazine Evolution: International Journal of Organic Evolution In 2011 pointed out, the frequency of the appearance of grasshoppers was significantly higher in the first year after the forest fire. This frequency decreased from 50% to 30% after 4 years. The team suggested that darker colors can help grasshoppers disguise better in burnt areas, covered with burnt leaves and ash. Gradually, when the ground recovered, the darkness became less useful, so the number of dark individuals decreased.

The second research published in 2012 assessing whether the darker color is really an advantage when hiding from predators. Research participants play the role of predators, looking for grasshoppers in photos of many different environments. It seems that evolution of darker colors is useful because they are much more difficult to detect. Finally, the research team concluded that camouflage and hunting were important factors that promote the situation of melanoma due to fire in small grasshoppers.

The phenomenon of adaptive black pigments is not only occurring when forest fires, the most famous is the case of Aries butterflies in the industrial revolution, called “industrial infection of industrial pigments”. At Chornobyl, where the nuclear disaster was 40 years ago, scientists also discovered a group of frogs from blue to black quite quickly. This is most likely an adaptive way, helping to protect them from toxic radiation.

This fast evolution is more common in animals with fast reproductive speed. However, experts believe that, in addition to insects and amphibians, black pigmentation due to fire also occurs in many other species, including mammals. Such a case is the Eastern fox squirrel. Research in 2020 in magazine Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution Discovered, the individuals infected with melanoma are related to the sweeping forest fire area.

The phenomenon of melanin can also occur randomly in the wild world. For example, Belgian wildlife photographer Yves Adams caught a black king penguin on the expedition of Saint Andrews Bay on the South Georgia Island, the Atlantic Ocean last year. This special color can make the animal more difficult to disguise.