14 Pink Animals That Wow and Woo
Domestic Pigs
Close-Up Of Piglet At Farm
Manop Boonpeng / EyeEm / Getty Images
Some domestic pigs are black because they overproduce the pigment eumelanin, while pink pigs don't make any melanin at all and end up a "default" pink.
But here's what's fascinating: Pigs evolved compelling coat colors only after domestication because of a human penchant for novelty, according to a study looking at wild and domestic pigs.2 As it turns out, pink pigs would not have survived in the wild long enough—because they would be easily detected by predators—to allow for the pink-producing mutations to have occurred.
Close-Up Of Piglet At Farm
Manop Boonpeng / EyeEm / Getty Images
Some domestic pigs are black because they overproduce the pigment eumelanin, while pink pigs don't make any melanin at all and end up a "default" pink.
But here's what's fascinating: Pigs evolved compelling coat colors only after domestication because of a human penchant for novelty, according to a study looking at wild and domestic pigs.2 As it turns out, pink pigs would not have survived in the wild long enough—because they would be easily detected by predators—to allow for the pink-producing mutations to have occurred.
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31 August 2023
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