this post was submitted on 29 Apr 2024
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Showerthoughts

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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The best ones are thoughts that many people can relate to and they find something funny or interesting in regular stuff.

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Birds, fish, reptiles, amphibians, insects? Sure. But no mammals.

So I had to google it. Apparently, there is a sloth that moves around so slowly moss grows all over it and it doesn't care. So it may appear green, but only in the sense that it wears it.

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 6 months ago (2 children)

This is an interesting question but I don't think it is restricted to green. Isn't the same true of purple, blue and red? I'm not talking about just reddish like human hair or a red panda but truly bright red like a cardinal. I would imagine it has something to do with our evolutionary history. Complete speculation here but laced with a few facts I picked up. I hear the common ancestor of mammals emerged around the time the dinosaurs became extinct and was basically a tiny rodent like a shrew. I wonder if as a small animal that can't fly or swim it had to hide a lot and basically just came in shades of brown. So maybe any genes for other colors were lost before that common mammalian ancestor emerged and although mammals have lots of patterns they don't have many colors.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 6 months ago

Baboons have some bright reds and blues, but they are certainly the exception that proves the rule on mammal colors.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago

Blue? Hello blue whales & dolphins? :)