Biological pigment Biological pigment Biological pigments, also known simply as pigments or biochromes, are substances produced by living organisms that have a color resulting from selective color absorption. Biological pigments include plant pigments and flower pigments. Many biological structures, such as skin, eyes, feathers, fur and hair contain pigments such as melanin in specialized cells called chromatophores. Pigment color differs from structural color in that it is the same for all viewing angles, whereas structural color is the result of selective reflection or iridescence, usually because of multilayer structures. For example, butterfly wings typically contain structural color, although many butterflies have cells
Biological pigment absorbance maximum, changing the different color pigments. In lobsters, there are various types of astaxanthin-protein complexes present. The first one is crustacyanin (max 632 nm), a slate-blue pigment found in the lobster’s carapace. The second one is crustochrin (max 409), a yellow pigment which is found on the outer layer of the carapace. Lastly, the lipoglycoprotein and ovoverdin forms a bright green pigment that is usually present in the outer layers of the carapace and the lobster eggs. Tetrapyrroles are the next most common group of pigments. They have four pyrrole rings, each ring consisting of CHNH. The main role