💁🏻‍♀️ TIL: 🐔🎨 A single MC1R gene acts as a molecular dimmer for feather color, and researchers found 18 variants that combine to create #chickens’ #rainbow of #plumage.

By reading the #genomes of over 10,000 #birds, they traced how these mutations accumulated since #domestication.

👉 https://phys.org/news/2026-06-chickens-gene-reveals-evolution.html

#genetics #evolution #pigmentation #biology #science #dna #leipzig #uppsala #berlin #agriculture #animals #ornithology

Happy #TushTuesday.
#Peacock tush 🦚
The males are so dramatic. They're super loud. Every year, they sing loudly for mates. Peacocks are polygamous & have multiple mates.

It's Spring & the peacocks are singing their mating songs, shaking their tushes, doing their full feathers out fan dances - to attract some peahens to nest with. It's fight season for competing peacocks too.

Peafowl (the blue ones) are native to India. They have huge cultural significance there. The peafowl is India's national bird.

#farm #tush #FluffyButt #BirdButt #animals #avian #bird #peafowl #Spring #rumpshaker #feathers #plumage #Saanich

"I am the Plu Mage, Magus of Plue!"

#plumage