Skip to main content
Worldbuilding

You are not logged in. Your edit will be placed in a queue until it is peer reviewed.

We welcome edits that make the post easier to understand and more valuable for readers. Because community members review edits, please try to make the post substantially better than how you found it, for example, by fixing grammar or adding additional resources and hyperlinks.

4
  • $\begingroup$ Why are true moles (Talpidae) black? Why are marsupial moles (Notoryctidae) creamy yellow? Why does the tricolor hognose snake have its striking color pattern, with, yes, lots of red? All those animals are fossorial, if that is what is meant by "underground". $\endgroup$
    – AlexP
    Commented Feb 12, 2023 at 23:51
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ You're overthinking it. For an alien world with an alien biology, the chemistry of that place can be sufficiently different to allow any color. Even bizarrely spectacular stuff via "structural coloration". On Earth, such things are relegated only to the taxons that (at some point in the past) had need to develop it (so mammals won't get bright metallic blue fur any time soon), but on your alien world anything's plausible. The only thing you might stay away from is photosynthesizing organisms, as their color does have something to do with the color of light they can absorb. $\endgroup$
    – John O
    Commented Feb 13, 2023 at 6:08
  • $\begingroup$ @JohnO color of blood also is a result of which chemicals are responsible $\endgroup$
    – Trish
    Commented Feb 13, 2023 at 8:46
  • $\begingroup$ @Trish Though related, color of the blood isn't the question here. In an alien physiology, it's not even clear that the color of blood would impact the color of their integument, or that they even have blood at all. $\endgroup$
    – John O
    Commented Feb 13, 2023 at 14:40