Dark lory parrot (Pseudeos fuscata)
ALDH3A2. It’s not a random set of letters and numbers: it’s the enzyme responsible for parrots’ color. And a single atom of oxygen makes all the difference.
A enzyme ALDH3A2 converts red pigments into yellow pigments. When developing feathers contain large amounts of this enzyme, they end up turning yellow, and when they have less, they turn red.
This is explained by , which cites two studies: one in Current Biology on November 4th and coordinated by Daniel Hooper and another, led by a Portuguese, Roberto Arbore already Science on November 1st.
It was Portuguese research, from the Center for Research in Biodiversity and Genetic Resources, that discovered the enzyme that gives parrots their color, using analysis of the dark lory (Pseudeos fuscata), a parrot native to New Guinea with fstripes of feathers that can be yellow, orange or red.
Almost all birds with bright red, orange, and yellow feathers or beaks wear a group of pigments called carotenoids to produce its colors, explains The Conversation.
But these animals cannot produce carotenoids directly: they must do so through their diet (more precisely, from the plants they eat).
Parrots are the exception to this rule — they have developed an entirely new way of producing colored pigments, psittacofulvins.
But Hooper’s study is equally revealing. The long-tailed finch (Poephila acuticauda) is a species of songbird native to northern Australia. There are two subspecies hybrids with different colored beaks. One has a yellow bill and the other has a red bill.
Hooper’s research then concluded that the beak color of these finches was linked mainly to two genes, CYP2J19 and TTC39B. In the long-tailed finch, the yellow coloration results from mutations that turn off these genes specifically in the beak, keeping them turned on in other parts of the bodylike the eyes.
The two studies must be understood as a whole, in order to have a more comprehensive picture, as they show how populations can change their color naturally.
The Conversation compares changing color in parrots to changing the lighting in a room by installing a dimmer into an existing light switch rather than removing an entire light.
These two new studies have therefore shown us how some genes and the addition of one single oxygen atom can alter the course of evolution, completely altering an animal’s color.
According to the newspaper, this study could still be the key to the development of a new species in the future.
