Apparently pink works as well, if a hunter wants a second color vest

I always wondered about that, thanks.

It’s also orange because mammals can’t produce green pigments, so orange is the next best thing if your prey is red-green colorblind.

This is probably an example of natural evolution/selection where tigers that had slowly evolved more orange in their fur naturally, were able to feed more. This in turn meant the orange triat in their genes was passed on more frequently and became more dominant in the population.

In a sense it was probably a "random" mutation, but when it became useful and effective it was passed down quicker.

Are there any green animals that aren't reptiles, birds or insects? That might be a clue.

Yellows and browns and orange are a lot more related, and whatever color the pre-orange tiger ancestor was, it was almost certainly one of those.

Natural variation in the coat means some of those tigers were more orange than their peers. This trait was selected for.

Probably both, except within the bounds of easily 'random' bounds. Supposing it were possible for a mammal to be green, it wouldn't matter of green were 'better', unless it happened at the right time. Orange could have won out simply because it was good enough to do one thing (camoflauge for pretty) and didn't have enough downside to message that benefit (high visibility to hunters or less valuable prey). Heck, a gene that turned a lion invisible could have turned up and it wouldn't be guaranteed to carry forward even if it didn't have any downsides if the random recipient also happened to be clumsy or unlucky and died of some random injury or disease.

Evolution doesn't really have any tools that aren't random, at least until intelligence came around to provide other 'non natural' paths, though of course those are just as natural as the others, just that we think we're special and above nature.

My cats are surprised both by me seeing them sitting on an empty floor, and by other cats who they didn't see sitting on the floor.

So I can only conclude the answer is semi-perpetual amazement.

They do not, like almost all mammals they are dichromatic! It's mostly us and some primates that can see in three wavelengths. Although interestingly enough, fish and birds can see in four wavelengths. Makes me wonder if that contributed to smaller cats being mostly gray and black, to just reduce as much light as possible?

I'm colorblind and the images are nearly identical. Good thing I'm not in tiger habitats very often.

outrun a mother fucking tiger

You only need to outrun your travelbuddy.

Only in areas with tigers, and then it would only express itself enough if there were enough evolutionary pressure exclusively on that survival tactic.

As long as other causes of death happen to deer in tiger territories and as long as speed remains a good survival strategy, minor mutations that would only provide an advantage in extreme specific scenarios like a tiger stalking them wouldn't have a chance to be spread.

There's also a whole host of additional brain power that needs to be dedicated to more complex colour blending and processing, and that may add enough delay to offset any potential gain in recognizing a threat.

It could, but it might also lead to something harmful for the deer at the same time. I'm not sure if the gene affecting the deer's eyesight is known, but it could be a pleiotropic gene (a gene that influences multiple traits at once).

If that's the case, and the other effect is negative and somehow spreads through the population, it could become a future issue for the deer. Think about humans—we lost the ability to produce our own vitamin C. Almost every other mammal can produce their own (except for hamsters). When this happened, it didn’t harm us right away, so it spread through the population. But over time, it led to issues that weren’t a problem before, like scurvy.

Same could happen to the deer.

Presumably yes, but its still down to a roll of the dice whether a mutation like that happens in the first place, and whether the individuals who have that mutation live long enough to breed, and whether that mutation actually gets passed down, etc

And then soon we'd have green tigers.

Do humans know tigers are green?

Probably not, the same way humans don't know we are striped.

No, they too are dichromats

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Mammals don't come in green. We have 2 colours available to us, in different amounts: eumelanin, which is dark brown to black, and pheomelanin, which is yellow/red. We can mix those up in any way, or none (for white), but it'll never be green.

Now, many other animals don't have green either, peacock feathers for example, have brown pigment, but they have a structure that makes it look green and blue from wave interference.

Unfortunately, you can't really do that with fur, since you need to look at fur from all directions, not just the front.

So, mammals don't get green fur.

Evolution is throwing things against the wall and seeing what sticks (by sticking I mean reproducing bc you have better traits). If every single one of their prey and predators have this color blindness then orange and green would have the same effectiveness and whichever trait comes out first. If a prey/predator evolved to have better color vision then it would quickly become a disadvantage and after millions of years it's possible they evolve to have green fur.

There could be other benefits like being easier to attract mates.

Also some animals can see infrared, so even if their fur was perfect for the environment they could still have issues by being spotted, in which case the color doesn't matter as much and the colors for mating becomes more important.

Edit: Wording.

A) Evolution is not directed. If a pre-tiger happens to be a more advantageous colour, it will have more offspring. There is no goal.

B) An orange tiger has the same camouflage from its prey's point of view as a green one, which is the thing that really matters. There is only one species a tiger is afraid of, and it's humans. I would wager that the orange also happens to act as a signal colour, both to other tigers and other predators (such as humans). Less run-ins and less territorial dispute sound pretty good.

AFAIK green is more expensive to produce. Plants use it since it's good at absorbing sunlight, but what's the advantage to a tiger, if their prey can't tell the difference?