The following table illustrates the coloration differences between the sexes: In the wild, the collared brown lemur's range does not overlap with other brown lemurs, so it is rarely confused with other species.
Coloration differences became less distinct with time and differences in phloroglucinol reactivity were not seen in the other three silenced lines.
Instead, we suggest that coloration differences are more likely to reflect heritable divergence because coloration is a key adaptive trait influencing predation risk [55], [56] and potentially mating success [57], [58].
Transgenic tobacco plants transformed with PpMYB10.2/ 3 showed no coloration differences with respect to flowers when compared with wild-type flowers (Fig. 4a).
Some are relatively easy to identify at any point due to coloration differences.
True lemurs show sexual dichromatism (sexual differences in fur coloration), but the difference between the genders varies from strikingly obvious, as in the blue-eyed black lemur (E. macaco), to nearly imperceptible in the case of the common brown lemur (E. fulvus).
In 2006, Weksler and colleagues noted tail coloration as a difference between the two species of Transandinomys (bicolored in T. talamancae and unicolored in T. bolivaris), but in their 1998 study, Musser and colleagues could not find differences in tail coloration between their Panamanian samples of the two species.
Although subtle environmental variation across the hybrid zone could explain the differences in parasite load and body condition, these were uncorrelated with colour expression, suggesting that the differences in coloration reflect heritable divergence.
There were statistically significant differences between the edwardsianus lineage and the other two lineages in head ratio and nuptial coloration, and no differences between Central and Western lineage.
Thus, environmentally mediated differences in parasite load are unlikely to explain differences in coloration although they could explain the differences in body condition.
