It’s also orange because mammals can’t produce green pigments, so orange is the next best thing if your prey is red-green colorblind.

This is probably an example of natural evolution/selection where tigers that had slowly evolved more orange in their fur naturally, were able to feed more. This in turn meant the orange triat in their genes was passed on more frequently and became more dominant in the population.

In a sense it was probably a "random" mutation, but when it became useful and effective it was passed down quicker.

Yellows and browns and orange are a lot more related, and whatever color the pre-orange tiger ancestor was, it was almost certainly one of those.

Natural variation in the coat means some of those tigers were more orange than their peers. This trait was selected for.

It feels like we were denied the stunning possibility of green tigers... until you stop and remember the stunning reality of them being bright fucking orange.

Probably both, except within the bounds of easily 'random' bounds. Supposing it were possible for a mammal to be green, it wouldn't matter of green were 'better', unless it happened at the right time. Orange could have won out simply because it was good enough to do one thing (camoflauge for pretty) and didn't have enough downside to message that benefit (high visibility to hunters or less valuable prey). Heck, a gene that turned a lion invisible could have turned up and it wouldn't be guaranteed to carry forward even if it didn't have any downsides if the random recipient also happened to be clumsy or unlucky and died of some random injury or disease.

Evolution doesn't really have any tools that aren't random, at least until intelligence came around to provide other 'non natural' paths, though of course those are just as natural as the others, just that we think we're special and above nature.

Recall that evolution isn't intelligent. Random mutations do random shit until one is accidentally successful. Random orange that appears green falls right into that scheme 😅

Are there any green animals that aren't reptiles, birds or insects? That might be a clue.

Umm, I've met tigers.

You need to explain to them that we're not prey, but they haven't figured it out yet.

I'm colorblind and the images are nearly identical. Good thing I'm not in tiger habitats very often.

Evolution is throwing things against the wall and seeing what sticks (by sticking I mean reproducing bc you have better traits). If every single one of their prey and predators have this color blindness then orange and green would have the same effectiveness and whichever trait comes out first. If a prey/predator evolved to have better color vision then it would quickly become a disadvantage and after millions of years it's possible they evolve to have green fur.

There could be other benefits like being easier to attract mates.

Also some animals can see infrared, so even if their fur was perfect for the environment they could still have issues being spotted, in which case the color doesn't matter as much and the colors for mating becomes more important.

A) Evolution is not directed. If a pre-tiger happens to be a more advantageous colour, it will have more offspring. There is no goal.

B) An orange tiger has the same camouflage from its prey's point of view as a green one, which is the thing that really matters. There is only one species a tiger is afraid of, and it's humans. I would wager that the orange also happens to act as a signal colour, both to other tigers and other predators (such as humans). Less run-ins and less territorial dispute sound pretty good.

Mammals don't come in green. We have 2 colours available to us, in different amounts: eumelanin, which is dark brown to black, and pheomelanin, which is yellow/red. We can mix those up in any way, or none (for white), but it'll never be green.

Now, many other animals don't have green either, peacock feathers for example, have brown pigment, but they have a structure that makes it look green and blue from wave interference.

Unfortunately, you can't really do that with fur, since you need to look at fur from all directions, not just the front.

So, mammals don't get green fur.

outrun a mother fucking tiger

You only need to outrun your travelbuddy.

I always wondered about that, thanks.