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The mystery of the color-changing hen
T. Nandakumar
Nature's magic: The hen that changes color.
Thiruvananthapuram city of Kerala state from India:What's the
color of your hen? A question as simple asthat will leave Selvaraj
fumbling for an answer.
The small-time farmer is yet to figure out the real color ofthe
hen strutting about on the premises of his house atMukkola near
Vizhinjam here.
The six-year-old bird is now a celebrity of sorts for
itscapacity to change color periodically from black to whiteand
back. Scientists are studying the hen that has
already changed color four times. It was after the
firstegg-laying period that Mr. Selvaraj and family noticed
theblack hen gradually changing to white without completelyshedding
its feathers. In about a year, it becamecompletely white.
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The new white hen continued to lay eggs, and in a year itstarted
turning black. It was then that Mr. Selvarajdecided to inform the
Zoology Department of theUniversity of Kerala about the puzzling
event.
A team of researchers led by CSIR emeritus scientist,Zoology
Department and Centre for Bioinformatics, Dr.Oommen V. Oommen,
examined the hen in 2008. Theteam included R. Dileep Kumar, K.
Ramachandran and L.Divya. They tagged the bird and collected blood
samplesfor investigation, and continued to observe the hen thatwas
superficially black with patches of white underneath.
The bird turned black and white in 2009 and almost whitein 2010.
The blood samples collected in 2008, 2009 and2010 were analyzed for
several hormones, includingestrogen (female sex hormone). The team
also consultedChandana Haldar from the Benares Hindu University
andother scientists.
The color change in the bird was found to coincide with
an abnormal increase in the level of estrogen, peaking atalmost
six times more than normal for a hen. Anexperiment conducted by
Professor Thapliyal (Dr.Oommen's mentor) of the BHU in the 1960s
hadestablished that estrogen can inhibit pigmentation
infemales.
Though it is natural of high concentration estrogen to
inhibit the color pigmentation process to turn the bird'sblack
plumage to white, the reversal process remains amystery to
scientists. It will require detailed geneticstudies to unravel the
science of this recurrent colorchange, Dr. Oommen said.
