Humans are exerting ever-greater influence on the Earth, our preferences playing a substantial role in determining future climate and which animal and plant species survive. New research shows that, in some cases, those preferences could be governed by factors as subtle as small color highlights a creature displays.
Everyone seems to love penguins. These enigmatic birds call the southern hemisphere, particularly Antarctica their home. But it is perhaps their black and white plumage dotted with orange and yellow coloration that gives us such an affinity for these endangered flightless birds.
David Stokes, a conservation biologist at University of Washington says that red, yellow and orange or typically warm colors drive our preferences.
He and his undergraduate students calculated the popularity of various species by studying photographs in four large-format photograph books about penguins.
“Penguins are lucky because they are popular with people, especially right now. But that’s not true of 99.9 percent of the species out there,” Stokes said. “Even the penguin species I found to be among the least appealing to people are tourist attractions.”
Tops on the list are the Emperors, featured in the film March of the Penguins, and their close cousins the King Penguins. Next are crested penguins, including Rockhoppers and Macaroni.
Species at the bottom of the list are Adelie, Yellow-eyed and Little Blue. Stokes was surprised by the relative lack of popularity of Adelie penguins because that species is probably the most familiar to the public.
There are 17 penguin species, and in the past some were hunted for food or boiled to extract their oil. Some species now struggle to survive climate change, changing food patterns and encounters with humans or human activity, such as oil drilling at sea.
The species are fairly similar, with some larger and some smaller, Stokes said. But the ones that appear to be most popular are the ones that display the warmest colors in the upper body, the neck and head. He likened the effect to that of a man in a tuxedo pinning on a red carnation. Unlike some other types of animals, human preference for particular penguin species does not seem to be driven by a “cuteness” factor.
The work has been published in the online edition of the journal Human Ecology, and will appear in an upcoming print edition.
Color is not the only factor that determines a species’ attractiveness to humans. Characteristics such as size and neoteny — the retention of babyish physical traits such as large eyes and large head — also can play major roles for some animals. Pandas, zebras and elephants, for example, are black and white or gray but are highly preferred by humans. Millions of insects and the countless slimy invertebrates that occupy the oceans are likely not as lucky, Stokes said.
