The colour of domestication and the designer chicken

Colour is an important feature of most living organisms. In the wild, colour has great significance affecting the survival and reproductive success of the species. The environmental constraints which lead to the specific colours of birds and animals are very strong and individuals of novel colours tend not to survive. Under domestication, mankind has transformed all the species involved which have thus been freed from environmental pressures to a large extent. Early colour variants were mostly selected for utility reasons or religious practices. In more recent centuries colour varieties have been created purely for ornament and pleasure, fashion playing a surprisingly large part in their development. A bewildering array of colours and patterns can now be found in all our commensal species, especially the Domestic Fowl (Gallus gallus domesticus). (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.