Ep 44: The Colorful Life of Bird Eggs

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It’s another Science Short, and today Fatu and Shekerah discover how bird eggs get their color–from brown, white, blue, speckled, and everything in between. To this day, scientists do not have a good understanding of why egg color developed in birds, but they do know that this trait co-evolved with the introduction of open-style bird nests, as opposed to covered nests. Open nests left bird eggs exposed and vulnerable to the outside environment, which led to one hypothesis that egg colors provide camouflage against potential predators. There are also other hypotheses that connect egg color to bacterial resistance, temperature regulation, and even female genetic fitness; literally as many hypotheses as there are egg color patterns.

Even though it is still a big mystery as to why birds have colored eggs, how these colors are formed is not. Birds are only capable of making two pigments–blue and brown–and the different combinations of these pigments produce the diverse spectrum of all the colors we see in eggs. With domesticated birds such as chickens, however, egg color is directly linked to the breed of chicken. Specific breeds only lay specific colors, for example Orpingtons lay brown eggs, Ameraucana lay blue eggs, and the “olive egger” breeds lay olive-green eggs. Catch this episode to learn more about the egg-straordinary story of bird eggs and how they got their colors.

Tune into this episode to learn more about:

• How scientists think different environmental pressures may be the key to why birds developed colored eggs
• What pigments are responsible for the diversity of color we see in bird eggs and how they are deposited on eggshells during egg development
• How chicken egg colors are influenced by genetics and human selection
• What causes speckling on bird eggs

If you enjoyed this episode, you’ll also enjoy:

• Ep 32: We Love Birds Too!
• Ep 22: The Science behind Baking with Yeast
• Ep 23: The Accidental Discovery of Penicillin

Read about the Nature Ecology and Evolution study

Reach out to Fatu:
www.linkedin.com/in/fatubm
Twitter: @thee_fatu_b
and [e-mail]

Reach out to Shekerah:
www.linkedin.com/in/shekerah-primus
and [e-mail]

Music from Pixabay: Future Artificial Intelligence Technology 130 by TimMoor
Music from https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Scott_Holmes: Hotshot by ScottHolmesMusic