A new scientific review has attempted to answer that seemingly simple question, along with the reasons behind the colouration of a whole monochrome menagerie, from pandas to ring-tailed lemurs. Less poetic than Kipling it may be, but the conclusion, from Dr Tim Caro at the University of California, Davis, is that in many cases scientists know very little for sure about why animals are coloured the way they are. The field is still hotly debated.
continue reading here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2009/jan/15/wildlife-animalbehaviour
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