There is something called dynamic dichromatism or changing of body colors among scores of species that has caught my attention this morning. Nature magazine has a short piece about this remarkable phenomenon where male frogs change the color of their bodies to essentially say they are horny. As Nature points out, the change of color is also meant to signals other suitors to lay off.
The piece says, “Rayna Bell of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History in Washington DC and her team have identified at least 178 frog species in multiple families and subfamilies that can switch hues, often to become more yellow.”
An abstract from the paper says, “Dynamic sexual dichromatism is a temporary colour change between the sexes and has evolved independently in a wide range of anurans, many of which are explosive breeders wherein males physically compete for access to females. Behavioural studies in a few species indicate that dynamic dichromatism functions as a visual signal in large breeding aggregations; however, the prevalence of this trait and the social and environmental factors underlying its expression are poorly understood. We compiled a database of 178 anurans with dynamic dichromatism that include representatives from 15 families and subfamilies. Dynamic dichromatism is common in two of the three subfamilies of hylid treefrogs.”
What if dynamic dichromatism existed among humans? I mean not just in sexual context but across a range of emotions. What if there was no fixed skin color? What might that do to destroy the foundations of racism? This is quite apart from the arresting visual of billions of people in constantly changing hues depending on their dominant emotion. I see that as an epic painting that is eternally changing its patterns.
Take this a step further where humans express their heightened emotions only visually rather than verbally and reserve spoken language only for everyday, average conversations which do not involve accentuated emotions. One result would be that demagogues would appear at public rallies completely silent but their faces and other visible parts of their bodies bursting with colors. That would be much better than hurling racist invective from a podium. If we must fight, let’s do so by changing the hues of our bodies—silently.