12 Elusively Blue Animals: The Rarest Creatures of All
Spix's Macaw
Spix's macaw
p z / Getty Images
The stunning Spix's macaw, native to northeastern Brazil and famous for its role as the lead character Blu in the popular 2011 film "Rio", nearly went extinct in the wild, with a single male believed to be the only living specimen in the mid-1990s. Fewer than three dozen others lived in captivity, which led to an ambitious, two-decade-long project to reestablish a population of Spix's macaws in the wild.
The color of its feathers range from brilliant turquoise on its front to dull bluish-grey on its head. As with other birds, the color is created by structural differences in the feather. "When white light strikes a blue feather, the keratin pattern causes red and yellow wavelengths to cancel each other out, while blue wavelengths of light reinforce and amplify one another and reflect back to the beholder’s eye," says
Spix's macaw
p z / Getty Images
The stunning Spix's macaw, native to northeastern Brazil and famous for its role as the lead character Blu in the popular 2011 film "Rio", nearly went extinct in the wild, with a single male believed to be the only living specimen in the mid-1990s. Fewer than three dozen others lived in captivity, which led to an ambitious, two-decade-long project to reestablish a population of Spix's macaws in the wild.
The color of its feathers range from brilliant turquoise on its front to dull bluish-grey on its head. As with other birds, the color is created by structural differences in the feather. "When white light strikes a blue feather, the keratin pattern causes red and yellow wavelengths to cancel each other out, while blue wavelengths of light reinforce and amplify one another and reflect back to the beholder’s eye," says
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30 August 2023
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