Collectively, the hair is called the pelage.
Also by means of selective breeding and careful genetic follow-up, breeders can produce a wide variety of natural pelage colours, ranging from pure white to sapphire, pearl, blue, and black.
The snowshoe, or varying, hare (Lepus americanus), for example, undergoes an annual change in colour of its pelage, or fur, from brownish or grayish in the summer to pure white in the winter, providing effective camouflage.
Hair, in mammals, the characteristic threadlike outgrowths of the outer layer of the skin (epidermis) that form an animal's coat, or pelage.
It was exceptional because its head, neck, back, and tail were covered with a thick, short "pelage" of dark filaments.
The pelage consists of a dense, soft underfur overlaid with dark and glossy guard hairs.
This nuptial pelage is typical only of adult males over four years of age.
The coat of the bobcat (L. rufus), or bay lynx, ranges from yellow and gray to reddish brown in colour, with the darker pelage occurring more frequently during the summer.
It is attracted by body heat and repelled by light, which causes the louse to stay within the warmth and darkness of the host's plumage or pelage.
The pelage is significant in several respects: as insulation; as a guard against injury; and, in its coloration and pattern, as a species adornment for mutual recognition among species members, concealment from enemies, or, in the case of many males, as a sexual allurement to promote courtship and mating.
Compsognathus and Sinosauropteryx thus appeared to represent an early branch of the coelurosaurian theropods (which included animals as varied as Archaeopteryx and Tyrannosaurus) whose ancestors already had a thick pelage of short filaments all over their bodies.
