🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Jul23.010953.6388@math.ucla.edu> barry@arnold.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman) writes:
>In article <10018@vice.ICO.TEK.COM> hall@vice.ICO.TEK.COM (Hal Lillywhite)  
>writes:
>> In article <9930@sun13.scri.fsu.edu> jac@ds8.scri.fsu.edu (Jim Carr) writes:
>> 
>> ....
>> >George did that routine before blue-corn became popular enough to 
>> >show up as corn flakes as well as tortillas, or squid-ink pasta made 
>> >it into american grocery stores.  Interesting that there are blue birds 
>> >and flowers but not blue animals; where is a biologist when we need one! 
>> 
>> And I find it peculiar that although there are blue birds, there are
>> no blue raptors that I know of.  Can you imagine the advantage a sky-
>> blue hawk would have?  His prey would have a very difficult time seeing 
>> him until it was too late.  I wonder why such an obvious advantage 
>> seems not to have developed.
>
>Actually, he should be blue on the bottom and dark on top,
>so that he ends up blending in when viewed from above or below.
>Thats "why" fish are silver on the bottom and dark on top, perhaps
>
Most raptors are, in fact, white or very light gray on their undersides,
with mottled brown top coats.  In most parts of the world inhabited by
hawks and the like, partly cloudy or hazy days far outnumber the
perfectly clear ones, so this actually works better than a blue
underside would -- white shows up less distinctly on a blue background
than vice versa.

Colin.