1. Violet Sea Snails
The Violet sea snail is one weird gastropod. Its lovely lavender shell is paper-thin and fairly fragile – not really a problem because it spends its entire life floating on the surface of tropical oceans. It manages this by whipping up a froth of bubbles with its foot, then sealing the bubbles in mucus to form a foamy raft.
2. Purple Beetles
In most cases, beetles that appear to be purple display this hue by virtue of iridescence. These beautiful, jewel-like insects display purple hues along with shades of blue and green.
3. Purple Emperor Butterfly
Purple Emperors are large butterflies found in southern England, most of continental Europe and in northern Asia as far east as Korea.
Purple emperors normally live in forest treetops but males will descend to the forest floor and to roadsides in search of mineral salts. Sources for these essential salts are fresh animal dung or puddles infused with road salt.
4. Purple Starfish
Starfish are a varied order of creatures that sport a surprisingly varied range of colors, including some striking hues of purple and violet.
It may be that the blue-green tint of seawater screens out some of the redder wavelengths of sunlight, therefore making a starfish that looks purple on dry land much more elusive when viewed underwater.
5. Orchid Dotty Back
Orchid Dottybacks are popular aquarium fish and it’s no wonder why: though it only grows to a length of 2 inches (5cm), they add a jolt of brilliant violet to any indoor seascape. Keep in mind, however, that dottybacks are carnivorous and need a steady diet of meat (shrimp will do) to thrive in captivity.
6. Indian Purple Frog
A bizarre purple burrowing frog discovered in 2003 doesn’t just look unlike any other frog, it is unlike them, having split off from a common ancestor approximately 130 million years ago. The frog, Nasikabatrachus sahyadrensis, shocked biologists into awarding it status as a new species in a wholly new family of amphibians.
Nasikabatrachus lives in the Western Ghats region of southern India. The bulbous, bloated, pointy-snouted frog bears the distinction of being the first new family of amphibians to be discovered since 1926. One of the frog’s more unusual features are its turquoise-rimmed tiny eyes… the better to see you with?
7. Indigo Snake
The Eastern Indigo Snake is North America’s longest snake, though some rattlers can outweigh them. At up to 10 feet (3.05m) long, these Colubrid snakes make an instant impression. As big as they are, few people are familiar with the Eastern Indigo Snake or its southwestern relative, the Texas Indigo Snake, which often does not work to the snake’s advantage and that’s unfortunate: these snakes are immune to rattlesnake venom and will often take on rattlers… for lunch.
8. Purple Martin
Purple Martins are among America’s best loved birds, and they seem to like us as well. So thoroughly have these largest members of the Swallow family taken to the multistory Martin “apartments” homeowners have set out for them that they prefer living in them to more natural woodland nesting places.
9. Pete, the Purple Squirrel
Squirrels aren’t naturally purple, so when a certain Grey Squirrel appeared sporting a distinctive, violet-tinged coat, naturally it attracted a lot of attention from British park-goers. The squirrel, quickly dubbed “Pete”, was seen by a number of witnesses in and around the grounds of Meoncross School in the town of Stubbington, Hampshire, UK.
10. Pelusa, the Purple Polar Bear
Though the name is not an official one, it is one that reflects the normally snow white bear’s current abode at the Mendoza, Argentina, zoo. According to Julio Alvarez, a veterinarian at the zoo, “At the moment and for a few days longer Pelusa will look purple because we’ve applied an ointment as a treatment for skin problems.”
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