Why is trout pink

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You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. Incidentally, this is the same reason why flamingos are pink. These birds are actually born with grey feathers, which turn gradually pink on account of canthaxanthin in their diet of brine shrimp. Further Domestic Restrictions Announced.

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It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website. Andie Sophia Fontaine. Photo by. Buy subscriptions, t-shirts and more from our shop right here! Last edited by Anonymous on Mon Nov 26, am, edited 1 time in total. Post by MikeFishes » Mon Nov 26, am crappie wrote: What about the orange color meat on a brown trout. Post by crappie » Mon Nov 26, am I've always wondered myself why trout had differnt color meat, so I was glad to see you asked, the brown trout I catch at Rock lake have orange color meat and it always struck me as a weird thing.

I dont remember if they tasted better, although my father-in-law will tell you in a second he thinks the orange meat is always better. Post by Marc Martyn » Mon Nov 26, am crappie wrote: What about the orange color meat on a brown trout. Post by iPodrodder » Mon Nov 26, am Size and age is the most important thing. Diet is the second biggest thing, and hatchery trout tend to have whiter meat than their native friends relative to size and age, because they've been hand fed pellets their whole life.

But they start to change the longer they've been in a lake. The carotenoid pigments, more commonly referred to as carotene pigments, in insects and crustaceans aren't metabolized in "salmonids" as they are in other types of fish.

The same pigments are found in carrots and fall deciduous tree leaves. They are common. The red color associated with sockeye salmon is perhaps the greatest example. Pink salmon humpies are pink in color and sockeye are red because the humpies only live for 2 years compared the the sockeye that traditionally are 4 year cycle fish - so sockeye have more time to consume krill and accumulate the carotene pigments in their tissue hence:darker red coloration.

The krill can be so abundant in the ocean off of the Alaskan coast that their sheer numbers can turn the ocean as red as tomato soup - plenty of food for schools of feeding salmon.

Sockeye brains have evolved to specifically target on krill populations by detecting the "odor"of krill. THose who can find the food survive. And, by the way - the great baleen whales also strain the krill from the water. Because mammalian physiology is different there is no accumulation of the carotene pigments as there wouldn't be in you are me regardless of how much we consumed.

Krill are marine crustaceans. So what about the trout in fresh water you ask? The invertebrate life in ponds and stream also have carotene pigments. It is interesting to note that some outward migrating juvenile chinook salmon kings swim southward from the Columbia River, Fraser River, and as they leave Puget Sound to migrate off the coast of California. While there are plenty of euphausiid shrimp krill in the great Alaskan gyral, not so south of Washington.

So south- migrating kings eat herring, sardines, and anchovy. When they return to their homestreams without having intercepted krill, their tissue does not have the pigment - those are the ones we call "white Kings" A shorter answer would have been "cause they eat bugs! You are on your own about the taste!