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Times Life
Times Life
Lifestyle
Aishwarya Kapoor

The Indian Roller's Colour Isn't Pigment, How Feather Structure Creates That Impossible Blue

A Bird With No Blue Pigment

The Indian roller has no blue pigment anywhere in its body. Not in its skin, not in any fluid it produces, not in anything it eats. Every shade of turquoise, cobalt, and violet on those wings is produced entirely by the physical architecture of the feathers themselves, a fact that has kept ornithology researchers occupied for the better part of three decades.

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