Not always.
Some females find themselves with pigments in their feathers that weren't really meant to be there. What comes from this is irregular feather structure due to different growth patterns, different barb size, etc. There is a variety of reasons why this may happen, the most probable of which being that the female has a hormonal imbalance. Most of the time these anomalies are just a bit of brown on the tip of the rump feathers. However, more rare are the females that develop male signaling colors such as reds and the variant yellow.
The way in which these females' feathers develop suggests a stress response; males with the same pigments' feathers are generally symmetrical and "prepared" for these kinds of pigments. What is different in feather development between females and males such that males are prepared for these pigments while females are not? I hope to answer this and related questions in the coming months.
No comments:
Post a Comment