(1) The work of Burtt and colleagues provides a nice complement to recent work on the genetic basis of melanism in birds.(2) However, melanism and amelanism are known to occur in many species of natricine snakes.(3) Adaptations to short, cool summers include activity at low temperatures, selection of warm habitats and microhabitats, melanism and hairiness coupled with basking behaviour, and prolonged or abbreviated life cycles.(4) Albinism does occur in some populations, but there are no published records of melanism (black fur) in lions.(5) That pattern of morphological convergence includes larger bills, reduced rust coloration in plumage, and increased melanism or dark coloration.(6) Its gorgeous spotted coat is distinctive, but jaguars with uncommon melanistic coloration are pure black.(7) Oh yes, one coyote and one melanistic squirrel also made the list!(8) There may still be very good mechanistic reasons why melanic plumage color reveals individual quality in European barn swallows, but they should have nothing to do with carotenoid signaling.(9) Such is the case with melanistic (black pigmentation) variation in some anenomefish species.(10) Additionally, 15 males and 16 females had particular plumage features that allowed individual identification (double black bar on wing, melanistic or dark plumage, advanced moult, broken feathers, first-year birds).(11) The majority of studies on melanin ornaments cited in Table 1 measured only the size of discrete patches of melanic feathers.(12) By the time the George Reserve was revisited in 1994 and 1995, the percentage of melanic specimens had dropped to 18.3%.(13) Two-thirds of the sightings involved large black animals resembling melanistic leopards, also known as panthers.(14) That's a golden cat skin, and that looks like a clouded leopard skin with a very unusual melanic coat variation.(15) We suggest that, in addition to its other functions, an important selective advantage of melanic plumage is its resistance to degradation by bacteria that are part of every bird's environment.
