English: Let’s talk about colour!

I see a lot of young therians putting a lot of emphasis on the colour of their fur. This prompted me to post this. I’m an adult therian, but I’m also a biologist. Links go to places where you can read more about the subject.

Colour vision basics

First of all, the way different animals see colour varies between different species. So what may look like a certain colour for human eyes, might look very different for a dog, bee or chicken. This is because of something called cone cells in our eyes. There are two important types of cells in vertebrate eyes: rods and cones. Rods see light or not, but are bad at differentiating between colours. They are more sensitive to even dim light. So this is why everything looks ”gray” in the dark. Cones differentiate between different wavelengths of light, so that we can see different colours. The more different types of cones we have, the more colours we can distinguish.

Colour vision in different animals

Humans and most primates have three different types of cones. But most mammals, including canines and felines, only have two different types. This makes a huge difference. In effect, a dog is red-green colour blind. It can tell the difference between blue and yellow, and light and dark, but cannot tell the difference between red and green. Read more here.

But some animals have more types of cones than humans have. For instance, most birds and som fish have four different types of cone cells. So they are better at telling colours apart than humans are! They can see UV! More information here: https://www.kaytee.com/learn-care/wild-bird/can-birds-see-color and here https://www.livescience.com/26994-how-birds-uv-vision.html There’s even research pointing towards that some species, such as pigeons, might have five different cone cells and be able to tell apart even more colours!

So, this means, that other animals view colour differently from humans.

Confusing naming conventions

In some animals, humans have decided to name specific colour variants as their own thing. For instance, ”black panther” is not a species. Both melanistic (black) jaguars and leopards are called ”panthers” despite being two different species, who live in two different parts of the world. Melanistic jaguars can mate with normal jaguars without any issues. Melanistic leopards can mate with normal leopards. It’s simply a question of fur colour, and doesn’t affect behaviour. Kind of like eye colour in humans.

In the fur industry, certain colour variants of popular fur animals are given fancy names. But they aren’t their own species either. For instance, marble fox and cross fox are just colour variants of the red fox (Vulpes vulpes). These variants are very rare in the wild, but have been selectively bred in captivity and are therefore more common in fur farms.

Dream shifts and symbolism

It’s somewhat common that when newly awakened therians try to use dream shifts or meditation or seek visions in trancelike states, that they will see themselves as a completely white or completely black version of their theriotype. But when they grow older, they don’t really feel like that colour is accurate. Why is that? This could have to do with the symbolic nature of dreams. Both black and white are kind of ”blank states”. So if you don’t know what colour fur you would have, your subconscious defaults to ”no colour”.

Colour is only skin deep

All this is me trying to say that you shouldn’t worry so much about what colour you are. Humans have placed a great deal of importance on things like skin and hair colour, going so far as to enslave people just for the way they look. I hope the reader understands how wrong and shallow that is. But for most animals, fur colour isn’t that important. They don’t go around looking at themselves in mirrors. Some animals change colour depending on the season, such as the arctic fox and snowshoe hare. So, don’t worry about it. Some animals are more visual, like birds, but even then… birds and humans don’t see colour in the same way. A bird that might look plain for humans eyes, might sparkle with ultra violet hues that human eyes cannot pick up!

Live your life without worrying too much about looks. And if you want to draw yourself in art, or make a tail, or whatever… Do what feels right in the moment. If your idea about how you would look like in your true form changes later, you can always make a new drawing or sew a new tail. It’s no big deal.