Why are there no green mammals?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Slow post is slow. I already mentioned the tree sloth.

The Sloth is slow too.

Nice recovery.

[Epictetus]

That's the closest thing to a green mammal you're likely to find.

Why are there no green mammals? Probably because there was never any selective pressure on mammals to turn green to begin with (or perhaps the underlying genes for "greeness" aren't available anyway ).

The environments in which most mammals live are fairly drab, and they have evolved to blend into those environments, I imagine principally to elude predators or, conversely, to capture prey:

Likewise, polar bears have evolved their white coats in the arctic, which blend into the background, increasing their chances of capturing prey:

[Tigger]

How about this one?

[Epictetus]

How about this one?

[Horwood Beer-Master]

There was a thread on this topic on RD.net. Will try to find link later.


Oh and,

...[please disregard the ape at the far right]...

Quite so.

[A Monkey Shaved]

I have my own theory and I think it has a lot to do with the evolution of colour vision in mammals
This mandrill illustrates any colour in mammals would be possible if the opposite sex found them sexually appealing.
The brilliantly gaudy colours in this mandrill intensified with sexual maturity.
However primates are one of the few orders of mammals with trichromatic colour vision and most mammals have only dichromatic colour vision cannot tell green from brown anyway so there is no bio-input to sexually single out unusual coloration like on that mandrill which just happens to be a primate with trichromatic colour vision. Green may be just avoided for sexual selection because of an association with fungal infections, oozing pus, and other nasty diseases which is probably why so few people such a punk rockers die their hair green but a willing to die it just about every other colour of the rainbow. There are also a few species of marsupials with trichromatic colour vision.
Birds like some parrots have an even far more enhanced colour vision than humans and are even sensitive to wavelengths of light on the ultraviolet we cannot see, which is why parrots come in just about every colour of the rainbow.

[A Monkey Shaved]

You have got to laugh I found this in youtube