{"id":65501,"date":"2025-07-14T18:09:19","date_gmt":"2025-07-14T18:09:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/65501\/"},"modified":"2025-07-14T18:09:19","modified_gmt":"2025-07-14T18:09:19","slug":"blue-green-and-even-gold-this-shark-uses-crystals-to-change-colour-new-study-finds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/65501\/","title":{"rendered":"Blue, green and even gold \u2013 this shark uses crystals to change colour, new study finds"},"content":{"rendered":"

The first time you see a\u00a0blue shark\u00a0in the water, it\u2019s almost impossible not to be taken aback by just how\u2026 well, blue they are. Now, scientists have uncovered the secret to their vivid azure hue and discovered that these animals might also be able to\u00a0change colour<\/a>.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Blue sharks<\/a> (Prionace glauca)\u00a0have special crystals inside their scales that create their distinctive shade and may also give them chameleon-like abilities, according to research presented at the Society for Experimental Biology\u00a0Annual Conference<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“Blue is one of the rarest colours in the animal kingdom,\u201d says Dr.\u00a0Viktoriia Kamska<\/a>, City University of Hong Kong, in a\u00a0statement<\/a>. \u201cAnimals have developed a variety of unique strategies through evolution to produce it, making these processes especially fascinating.\u201d<\/p>\n

The blue shark\u2019s strategy? Special crystals inside the tooth-like scales (known as dermal denticles) that these animals have covering their bodies.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Derman denticles have pulp-like cavities and, inside these, are guanine crystals, which reflect blue light, and tiny sacs that store melanin (a natural pigment that give skin, hair and eyes their colour), which absorb other wavelengths of light.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThese components are packed into separate cells, reminiscent of bags filled with mirrors and bags with black absorbers, but kept in close association so they work together,\u201d says Kamska.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"BlueBlue shark dermal denticles. Credit: Dr Viktoriia Kamska<\/p>\n

The scientists used a combination of advanced technologies to figure out how these tiny structures worked to create the shark\u2019s vibrant colour.<\/p>\n

“When you combine these materials together, you also create a powerful ability to produce and change colour,\u201d says\u00a0Professor Mason\u00a0Dean<\/a>. \u201cWhat\u2019s fascinating is that we can observe tiny changes in the cells containing the crystals and see and model how they influence the colour of the whole organism.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s incredibly difficult to tweak the tiny structures themselves to test different scenarios so they also turned to computer simulations to see what happened when different wavelengths of light were introduced.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As well as uncovering how the shark creates its bold blue colouring, the experts also realised that it might have the ability to change hues, like a chameleon<\/a>. When the crystals move closer together, the shark appears its classic blue colour, and when they drift further apart, its skin is tinted with greens and golds.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This could help the animal stay camouflaged in changing environmental conditions. “In this way, very fine scale alterations resulting from something as simple as humidity or water pressure changes could alter body colour,\u201d says Professor Dean. These “then shape how the animal camouflages or counter-shades in its natural environment.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

In deeper, darker water, the pressure might push the nanocrystals together more closely and so the shark would turn a darker blue \u2013 helping it blend in more seamlessly with its surroundings.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The researchers now want to see how their hypothesis plays out in the wild \u2013 can they observe this happening among blue sharks in their natural habitat?<\/p>\n

They\u2019re also curious how the understanding of this mechanism might benefit humans by inspiring ways of creating a blue colour without using potentially harmful chemicals. “A major benefit of structural colouration over chemical colouration is that it reduces the toxicity of materials and reduces environmental pollution,\u201d says Kamska.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sharks aren\u2019t the only marine animals that have remarkable colour changing abilities.\u00a0Cephalopods<\/a>\u00a0such as\u00a0octopus,<\/a> cuttlefish<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0squid<\/a>\u00a0can alter their colour and pattern in the blink of an eye \u2013 sometimes even sending messages through the displays that flash up on their skin. <\/p>\n

Even\u00a0seahorses<\/a>\u00a0can blend into their surroundings to hide from potential danger. They are able to do this thanks to tiny balloon-like pouches within their skin called chromatophores. These are filled with pigment and can rapidly grow or shrink to change the animal\u2019s appearance.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Studying how blue sharks (and perhaps other species, including\u00a0great whites<\/a>\u00a0which may be able to\u00a0change<\/a>\u00a0their shade to creep up on prey without detection) create their colour could give researchers exciting new insights.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know a lot about how other fishes make colours, but sharks and rays diverged from bony fishes hundreds of millions of years ago,\u201d says Professor Dean, \u201cso this represents a completely different evolutionary path for making colour.\u201d<\/p>\n

Top image: blue shark. Credit: Getty<\/p>\n

More amazing wildlife stories from around the world<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The first time you see a\u00a0blue shark\u00a0in the water, it\u2019s almost impossible not to be taken aback by…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":65502,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[159,67,132,68,837],"class_list":{"0":"post-65501","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-united-states","10":"tag-unitedstates","11":"tag-us","12":"tag-wildlife"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114852932099045334","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65501"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65501\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}