Ueber den gelben Federfarbstoff des Wellensittichs (Melopsittacus undulatus (Shaw))

The evolution of plumage colouration in parrots: a review

“…Although parrots have circulating carotenoids that are dietdependent and at levels comparable to other birds studied (McGraw and Nogare 2004;Knott et al 2009), several studies have shown that carotenoids are absent from their feathers (Völker 1937(Völker , 1942Stradi et al 2001;McGraw and Nogare 2005). Instead, parrots are thought to use primarily a unique class of pigments called psittacofulvins, which are found nowhere else in nature (Kruckenberg 1882;Völker 1936Völker , 1937Völker , 1942Stradi et al 2001;McGraw and Nogare 2005;McGraw 2006). Being unique to parrots, and responsible for such gaudy colouration, these pigments are one of the more intriguing aspects of the colour system of parrots and have been of interest to scientists since they were first described in the late nineteenth century.…”

“…Kruckenberg (1882) isolated several novel pigments from the feathers of parrots, which he named psittacofulvins, and showed that these pigments, while lipidsoluble like carotenoids, had different absorption characteristics to carotenoid pigments found in the feathers of other birds. Völker (1936Völker ( , 1937Völker ( , 1942 followed up this work with a series of studies that further demonstrated the use of unique, non-carotenoid pigments in the plumage of parrots, including unusual fluorescing yellow pigments (Völker 1936(Völker , 1937; see below). Völker (1936) provided the first evidence that pigment concentrations in parrots were not related to diet.…”

“…However, carotenoids and melanins are not the only pigments responsible for plumage colouration. It has long been known that the striking red, orange and yellow plumage colours of parrots are not carotenoids (Kruckenberg 1882;Völker 1936Völker , 1937Völker , 1942. Although parrots have circulating carotenoids that are dietdependent and at levels comparable to other birds studied (McGraw and Nogare 2004;Knott et al 2009), several studies have shown that carotenoids are absent from their feathers (Völker 1937(Völker , 1942Stradi et al 2001;McGraw and Nogare 2005).…”

“…Typically, psittacofulvins have absorption peaks at shorter wavelengths than carotenoids (Völker 1936), and feature small ultraviolet reflectance peaks (Pearn et al 2001;McGraw and Nogare 2005). Representative reflectance spectra from the psittacofulvin plumage of several species are shown in Burkhardt (1989), Hausmann et al (2003), Pearn et al (2003a), McGraw and Nogare (2005), Håstad and Ödeen (2008), Masello et al (2008) and Toral et al (2008); see also Fig.…”

Relative contributions of pigments and biophotonic nanostructures to natural color production: a case study in budgerigar (Melopsittacus undulatus) feathers

“…We extracted the lipid-soluble [likely psittacofulvin (Völker, 1936)] non-melanin pigments from feathers using thermochemical extraction with organic solvent transfer following McGraw et al (McGraw et al, 2004). Briefly, we placed feathers in tubes with 1ml acidified pyridine (three drops HCl in 50ml pyridine) and heated them in a water bath at 95°C for 4h.…”