Offbeat Tuesday

No color exists in a pure state. There are innumerable variables that influence how we perceive a particular hue. Color is always affected by light, and the placement of one color next to another alters the way each is experienced, as great artists and designers have always understood.

The color of a flower attracts the insect or bird that's required to pollinate the plant. Red blooms lure butterflies and hummingbirds; blue, violet and purple blossoms tend to entice bees.

In the early 1990s, paint manufacturers offered four hundred to six hundred colors. Ten years later, that number grew to nearly sixteen thousand, according to the Paint Quality Institute.

The avocado-colored kitchen appliances that proliferated in the 1970s were a reaction to the psychadelic colors of the 1960s.

Warm colors stand out to the human eye, which is the reason signs and signals warning of potential danger tend to be yellow or red.

School busses in the United States are Chrome Yellow and used to be Omaha Orange.

A pregnant goldfish is called a twit.

Ants cannot chew their food, they move their jaws sidewards, like a scissor, to extract the juices from the food.

On an American one-dollar bill, there is an owl in the upper left-hand corner of the "1" encased in the "shield" and a spider hidden in the front upper right-hand corner.

A baby eel is called an elver, a baby oyster is called a spat.

H/T to reader Michelle for providing some of todays trivia!