Colour vision in Finlayson’s squirrel (<i>Callosciurus finlaysonii</i>): is conspicuous pelage colour useful for species recognition?

Tamura, Noriko; Fujii, Yukiko; Boonkhaw, Phadet; Prayoon, Umphornpimon; Kanchanasaka, Budsabong

doi:10.1080/03946975.2017.1345471

Cited by 7 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…As expected, we found no significant sexual dichromatism in any Funambulus species, suggesting no role of coat colouration in sexual signaling, similar to most non-primate mammalian species [9]. An experimental test of colour vision in Callosciurus finlaysonii suggests that the dichromatic vision of tree squirrels cannot differentiate between browns and reds [69], implying the insignificance of colouration in intraspecific signaling.…”

Section: Funambulus Squirrels Show Extensive Coat Colour Variationsupporting

confidence: 73%

Multifunctional evolution of palm squirrel coat colour and pattern

Nivetha,

D’Souza,

Shijisha

et al. 2023

Preprint

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Complex colour pattern traits often evolve in response to multiple selective pressures, emphasizing the need for their investigation in an integrative framework. We use museum specimens (n=718) to study the evolution of coat colouration in three palm squirrel species (Funambulus spp.) in the Indian subcontinent, with climate, vegetation, and predators as the potential selective forces. Our results indicate a strong geographical trend in coat colour distribution within and across species, with darker individuals in the southern and lighter individuals in the northern regions. We find significant darkening of coat colouration in more humid, densely vegetated regions with dark soils. Fine-scale intra-specific analyses suggest that species respond differently to multiple abiotic selective pressures. Investigation of stripe pattern elements suggests that the colour-based elements are more visible to raptors, while luminance-based elements are more visible to ferrets. We also find that squirrel species are darker in areas with denser and taller canopies, with low-contrast stripes specific to each predators vision. Overall, squirrel coat colouration evolves in response to multiple abiotic factors, including climate and habitat, and specific stripe elements provide particular visual effects on predators depending on the habitat.

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Section: Funambulus Squirrels Show Extensive Coat Colour Variationsupporting

confidence: 73%

Multifunctional evolution of palm squirrel coat colour and pattern

Nivetha,

D’Souza,

Shijisha

et al. 2023

Preprint

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“…Many sighted animals use color as a salient and reliable cue [1] to identify conspecifics [2][3][4], predators, or food [5][6][7]. Similarly, nocturnal, weakly electric fish Gnathonemus petersii might rely on ''electric colors'' [8] for unambiguous, critical object recognitions.…”

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confidence: 99%

Electric-Color Sensing in Weakly Electric Fish Suggests Color Perception as a Sensory Concept beyond Vision

et al. 2018

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“…Species‐level findings of Tamura et al. (2017) showed that Finlayson's squirrel ( Callosciurus finlaysonii ) uses seasonal colour pelage of the dorsum, but not the tail, during the mating season to avoid interspecific breeding with sympatric congeners.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…On the other hand, rodents were less likely to evolve colourful tail coloration when sympatric with one or more congeners dismissing the idea that contrasting tails are used for species identification to avoid hybridisation. Species-level findings of Tamura et al (2017) showed that Finlayson's squirrel (Callosciurus finlaysonii) uses seasonal colour pelage of the dorsum, but not the tail, during the mating season to avoid interspecific breeding with sympatric congeners.…”

Section: Striking Tail Colorationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mammal coloration as a social signal

Howell,

Caro

2024

Journal of Zoology

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Otherwise, apparently cryptic mammals often have conspicuous patches of colour on distal regions of their body, possibly for signalling. To investigate ideas about communication within sociosexual contexts, we used a comparative dataset for 2726 terrestrial mammals to match the coloration and patterning of distal body areas (head, chest, rump and tail) to activity cycle, group size, sexual size dimorphism, mating system and congener overlap at both Class and Order levels. Using phylogenetic controls, we uncovered repeated associations between white colour patches and nocturnality, conspicuous rump patches and sexual selection and multicoloured, complex patterning on distal regions of the body being associated with small group size. Overall, however, we found rather few associations between conspicuous coloration and behavioural, social and morphological variables, suggesting that visual signalling is not a key driver of communication in mammals, perhaps because the majority are nocturnal and solitary, and rely on olfactory signalling.

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Colour vision in Finlayson’s squirrel (Callosciurus finlaysonii): is conspicuous pelage colour useful for species recognition?

Cited by 7 publications

References 29 publications

Multifunctional evolution of palm squirrel coat colour and pattern

Multifunctional evolution of palm squirrel coat colour and pattern

Electric-Color Sensing in Weakly Electric Fish Suggests Color Perception as a Sensory Concept beyond Vision

Mammal coloration as a social signal

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