Attractiveness for Fur Colors

[VankirvanJD]

Many polygamous male animals, mostly birds such as peacocks and birds of paradise, use color to attract many different females. This can also occur in female birds, like belted kingfishers or red phalaropes who have polyandrous, brighter females to attract many males. Since both male and female Nichelings have the option to be polygamous/ployandrous, I feel like yellow and red fur (the brightest fur colors and the ones with no camouflage) should add +1 attractiveness for nichelings. It would make sense that these colors have no camouflage since they are extremely bright, but this brightness can be of use. 

Each fur color gene will have +1 attractiveness, so for example, if a nicheling has two red genes, a red and yellow gene, etc, then they will have +2 attractiveness. If they have one red gene and a chestnut brown gene, for example, they'll only have 1 attractiveness.

 

Some pictures just cause

Brighter maleBrighter male

Brighter female

Edited April 2, 2019 by VankirvanJD
Thanks for the educational correction @BirdsAreCool :D

[kakapo123]

On 3/27/2019 at 5:07 PM, VankirvanJD said:

Agreed, but I did that because female nichelings with camouflage would be able to avoid detection from predators, keeping them and their unborn baby safe. I think males would find their fur color attractive because of that, so colorful males wouldn't be attractive just because of their sex. Would that work do you think?

Changed it so that females will have attractiveness if they have camouflaged fur in there biome.

While it would make sense for males to be attracted to females who are well camouflaged in their habitat, sexual dichromatism in birds is actually determined by sexual selection

In polygamous birds the males mate with as many females as they can and leave the females to raise the young on their own. In these species the males compete amongst themselves for mating rights, and to avoid fighting which can lead to injury they instead have boldly coloured plumages which they use to attract females in courtship displays. Because the females choose their mates they don't face any competition amongst themselves and have dull colours for camouflage. Polyandry, where the female takes multiple mates and leaves the males with the young, also occurs in birds, but is much more common in fish. In polyandrous birds, which includes waders like dotterels and phalaropes, the female shows a bolder colouration. The difference between the males and females in the examples I've given are very slight, but they're there

In monogamous birds, where birds only take one mate for the rest of their life, and seasonally monogamous birds, where birds only take one mate each breeding season, both sexes face competition. Usually in these birds both sexes either have bold plumages like parrots or plumages adapted for camouflage like penguins

On 3/30/2019 at 9:01 PM, VankirvanJD said:

I don't think there are fancier females, more like just as fancy as the males, like with superb starings if I'm not mistaken? Either way I just went with the whole males are fancy and females are camouflage-y thing since that's more common . And this attractiveness doesn't work among tribemates, only with wanderers like with peacock tail, so I don't think it would matter who took care of the babies?

It's rare for female birds to be more brightly coloured than males, but not impossible. Below are a few of the examples I could find. They are, from top to bottom, a grey phalarope female and male, a belted kingfisher female and male (not sure if these guys are polyandrous or what) and an eclectus parrot pair (they're monogamous and while they show sexual dichromatism they are both brightly coloured, neither of them is coloured for camouflage)

[kakapo123]

I think this is a great idea. Instead of making brown attractive for females though, I would just make red and yellow attractive on both sexes. The peacock tail is only attractive on males because it is only all big and showy on males. Red and yellow look the same on both sexes, there's no reason for them to be more attractive on males just because they're males

[VankirvanJD]

9 hours ago, BirdsAreCool said:

Red and yellow look the same on both sexes, there's no reason for them to be more attractive on males just because they're males

Agreed, but I did that because female nichelings with camouflage would be able to avoid detection from predators, keeping them and their unborn baby safe. I think males would find their fur color attractive because of that, so colorful males wouldn't be attractive just because of their sex. Would that work do you think?

Changed it so that females will have attractiveness if they have camouflaged fur in there biome.

[VankirvanJD]

1 hour ago, Snowystar32 said:

Good idea! But maybe their could be a setting that determines whether males or females take care of the babies. Some females of some species have fancier feathers than males. And maybe mask could be attractive.

I don't think there are fancier females, more like just as fancy as the males, like with superb starings if I'm not mistaken? Either way I just went with the whole males are fancy and females are camouflage-y thing since that's more common . And this attractiveness doesn't work among tribemates, only with wanderers like with peacock tail, so I don't think it would matter who took care of the babies?

[VankirvanJD]

31 minutes ago, BirdsAreCool said:

Polyandry, where the female takes multiple mates and leaves the males with the young, also occurs in birds, but is much more common in fish. In polyandrous birds, which includes waders like dotterels and phalaropes, the female shows a bolder colouration.

Ah yes I've heard of polyandry, but only with ratites who look mostly the same (rheas) except that the females are larger (cassowaries), so I didn't think color matters. So yeah I think it would make more sense if both bright colored males and females could attract mates, since Nichelings do have the option of being polyandrous and polygamous. Thanks for the information as well!  I'll edit the post in a second.

[kakapo123]

How has this only got 15 upvotes??

[kakapo123]

bump

[kakapo123]

On 3/15/2020 at 2:39 PM, BirdsAreCool said:

bump

 

[Snowystar32]

Good idea! But maybe their could be a setting that determines whether males or females take care of the babies. Some females of some species have fancier feathers than males. And maybe mask could be attractive.