Page 17 - dpl 4.indd

nAture

Red - a favourite colour of birds

Maple leaves in autumn
Winter is white, wouldn’t you say? Pale sun, a
glaring waterless sky. Spring is green. Summer
is yellow with lots of orange - and sunny. And
autumn? It is surely red.

Elizabeth Taylor as Cleopatra
Cleopatra used red lipstick and so did the merchants will speak of burgundy, claret, and drapes that people have favoured
Virgin Queen, Elizabeth I. dark red and Bordeaux. There’s maroon throughout history originally came from
too and cerise, magenta, carmine, and crushing tiny scale insects, Kermes
According to Wikipedia, an experiment by the cherry red glow of molten metal. vermilio, found in oak trees. Their dye is
the University of South Brittany in France still used, mostly as a food colourant.
asked female students to wear red, pink The world’s earliest known use of red
or brown lipstick, or none at all, and to colouration used by humans can be The Spanish conquistadors found the
sit at a bar. They found men approached found in South Africa. Twenty years Mayas and Aztecs of South and Central
women wearing red lipstick fastest and ago paleo-anthropologists, working in a America had a far more vivid red than
most often. cave at Pinnacle Point near Mossel Bay, existed in Europe. It was from an insect
discovered evidence of early humans closely related to Kermes – the cochineal,
“Red sky at night, shepherds delight; red having scraped and ground ochre, a red Dactylopius coccus. These tiny insects
sky in the morning, shepherd’s warning.” clay, probably for colouring their bodies. thrived on cacti. By the 1520s cochineal
Many people believe a red sky in the The residues were dated well beyond was being shipped back to Europe
evening presages fair weather while, in 40 000 years ago. and it accounts for the new richness of
the morning, it indicates the opposite. costumes depicted in later Renaissance
Ochre is found in abundance across paintings.
But why are sunsets red? It’s because Eurasia and Africa and was used in the
when the sun is low on the horizon its dramatic cave paintings of Lascaux in Almost a century ago, South African
rays have to penetrate a greater density the Dordogne Valley in France depicting farmers found that the prickly pear cactus
of atmosphere fi lled with particles and species of cattle and bison, now extinct, (Opuntia vulgaris), which had been
moisture. The short waves of blue and in the Altamira Cave in Spain. The imported from South America as fodder,
and green do not have the strength to paintings have been dated at around had begun invading more valuable
penetrate as far as the longest rays, red 17 000 years old. farmland. So they imported the cactus-
and orange. eating cochineal insect. It did its job but
While red ochre was readily available to then discovered our aloes. One often
There are at least 40 shades of red. Stone Age people, they also made use sees cochineal-infected aloes with their
There is crimson for instance – it of madder, a plant whose roots produce leaves covered in raised white spots.
contains a hint of blue which makes it a a red dye. The red gowns of Europe’s Crush the insects and you’ll see the red
stronger colour than, say, ruby red. Wine and Asia’s nobility and the red fl ags juice.

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DPL