I JUST LOVE THESE!!

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I just love Peruvian Milk Snakes and the bands on their skin. What's weird is I like multi colored scarves that have similar patterns as the snakes, bands of alternating colors. I like this pattern more than other snake patterns. like the diamond one, for example.

My dad produced a training movie for the US Navy about "venomous creatures of the sea", and talked about how a couple of drunken sailors in the south sea islands danced around with one of those octopi (placing it on each other shoulders), and how they had to be hospitalized from the poison. So I guess you're not the only land primate lacking the instinct to be NOT attracted to them! I guess other sea creatures would be wired to be repulsed by the sight of them. Kinda like american rattlesnakes: native cougars, coyotes, and foxes, are instinctively afraid of the sound made by a rattler. But an area of the North Carolina mountains is infested with the feral descendants of imported Russian wild boars. When a boar confronts a rattling rattler the boar will just scarf it up as food because they lack the instinctive fear of the rattle sound that American wildlife has.

Many rattlers are not rattling anymore,they have learned it is dangerous.
http://www.kltv.com/Global/story.asp?S=13324196
There are more articles on this besides this one.
My experience with timber rattlers is they are docile,I have been within inches of striking distance.They don't rattle,once one was crossing the yard and all it did was give a couple of lazy shakes,just to let us know it was there.I see them all the time and they are not aggressive,but I would not want to step on one.

I don't want to be around poisonous snakes because with my luck one would bite. I would die.
But I like Milk, King and Corn snakes.

Lots of creatures do not have a fear of beautiful colors, especially blues and reds. If you look at nature, these colors are abundant and attract mates. Even humans love the blue eye mutation.

With birds color is a big attraction.In the reptile and amphibian world it may mean keep away.
But colors are used to attract mates,my old male iguana turned the most beautiful color of orange during his breeding time.

I have a difficult time thinking there's any correlation between colors, markings and venom. What I believe is the colors attract mates and that is why they exist. The females see the pretty colors, go oo la-la I want that then produce babies with the pretty colors and that's why you see them. We think "keep away" whenever we see any venomous or dangerous creature for that matter. Like a lion. There's not distinct markings but we all know what a lion looks like, we have all seen pics. Most people would try to leave if one suddenly appeared before them.

Even my vegetarian tortoise can tell when something is green, it's his fave color. When he sees green he goes toward it, he thinks he can eat it. Colors attract.

Patterns can be alarming though, like when moths have big eyes on their wings to spook predators.

One thing about Blue Ring Octopus, they do have the circular patterns and that could maybe make a predator think they are a school of fish or something with a lot of eyes.

Vibrant colors attract mates and repel predators.A win win situation.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-n ... evice=ipad

birds have better color perception than humans do, so to them the males are probably even more vibrant.

In WW2, the power in any given area that had air dominance would strip the camouflage paint off of their planes and leave them sleek and silver, with just a few markings to indicate country of origin; the countries that were relatively weak in the air in any given area would paint their planes with countershading, white on the bellies and camouflage on the backs, so as not to be as visible to the dominant pilots.

Color isnt simple.


Most animals most of the time are drab colored. And are drab colored to blend into the environment to escape predation.

During mating season you see bright colors to attract mates. With birds generally its the males that are brightly colored to attract mates, and the female dress in drab camo to avoid predators. And the species in which both genders are drab the males make up for it with conspicuous musical prowess.

Octapi do both- change color to blend in, and change color to be conspicuous- to express anger- or to attract mates or whatever.

Venomous species advertise their toxicity with bright colors (cobras add the hood, and rattlesnakes add the rattle sound).

Placental mammals are rarely venomous, but there is one mammal that uses another kind of chemical warfare, and that animal is also conspicuously colored to advertise itsself- that being the skunk. Though not in primary colors, the skunk's bold black and white is still quite distinct and bold and definitely not for camoflague.

And as LKL said human miliary designers studied animal camo in the 20th Centurey to figure out how to paint military equipment. Countershading (making the underside white) for aircraft was lifted straight from the animal kingdom by military designers.

Fruit is the opposite of animals: the drab color means its not ripe and will make you puke. The bright color is advertising to attract -rather then repel-the fruit eating animals the fruit is ripe (so the animal gets its sugar, and the plant gets its seeds spread).

Then there are some creatures that appear to be boldly colored in captivity but in their wild environment that bold coloration actually blends in and hides the animal- like tigers.

Yes, but you have the Mamba, very deadly, very plain and no hood. I think it is way more complicated than equating deadliness with coloring.

You do raise an interesting point about camouflaging. In some places, colors absolutely cannot happen, the little animal or insect will be seen right away and eaten before it can ever reproduce or do so in a good sized number, while in other places, it can and does happen and you see the results, colorful populations of various species. There are many variables. It varies from location to location what the outcome of those mutations will be.

The colors that animals and others see.
http://askabiologist.asu.edu/colors-they-see
Some plums and cherries are yellow or greenish color when ripe,the birds don't bother these as much as the red fruits.

If that's correct then it's amazing how cephalopods can only see blue, but can display a multitude of colors they themselves can't see or comprehend.

They can see great Cthulhu above apparently....

I love octopuses, they are my favourite animal. Just think, considering how intelligent they are, what a tragedy it is they never live to be older than two. An octopus with 30 years of life experience would be the nearest thing to encountering an extra-terrestrial life form.

Mamba venom is not primarily defensive, though. It's to kill prey, which it wants to sneak up on.

Both fruit and flowers are colored in part to attract specific pollinators or spreaders. A lot of tropical and neo-tropical fruit (think mangoes) in the new world evolved with megafauna that are now extinct, and if humans hadn't come along, might have gone extinct.

White, night blooming flowers with strong scents = pollinated by moths (tobacco)

red, trumpet-shaped, day blooming flowers = pollinated by hummingbirds (christmas cactus, columbine)

large, cup-shaped night blooming flowers = pollinated by bats

yellow or purple day-blooming flowers = pollinated by bees

etc.