BACKGROUND The interdisciplinary field of animal coloration is growing rapidly, spanning
questions about the diverse ways that animals use pigments and structures to generate …

Many of the colour displays of animals are proposed to have evolved in response to female
mate choice for honest signals of quality, but such honest signalling requires mechanisms to …

Bright-red colors in vertebrates are commonly involved in sexual, social, and interspecific
signaling [1–8] and are largely produced by ketocarotenoid pigments. In land birds …

Thirty years of research has made carotenoid coloration a textbook example of an honest
signal of individual quality, but tests of this idea are surprisingly inconsistent. Here, to …

The first comprehensive review of all aspects of the biology of moult, drawing information
from across the literature and in all birds, from penguins to passerines. Feathers are …

Behavioral ecologists have long studied the role of coloration as a defense against natural
enemies. Recent reviews of defensive coloration have emphasized that these visual signals …

The signalling function of melanin‐based colouration is debated. Sexual selection theory
states that ornaments should be costly to produce, maintain, wear or display to signal quality …

The colorful phenotypes of birds have long provided rich source material for evolutionary
biologists. Avian plumage, beaks, skin, and eggs—which exhibit a stunning range of cryptic …

Trade-offs in resource allocation have been widely stated as the means by which the
honesty of ornamental traits is maintained, but an alternative to this resource trade-off …

Animal colors play important roles in communication, ecological interactions and speciation.
Carotenoid pigments are responsible for many yellow, orange and red hues in animals …