Brief Communications
Nature 429, 363 (27 May 2004) | doi:10.1038/429363a
Pigment chemistry: The red sweat of the hippopotamus
Yoko Saikawa1, Kimiko Hashimoto1,2, Masaya Nakata1, Masato Yoshihara3, Kiyoshi Nagai3, Motoyasu Ida3 and Teruyuki Komiya3
Within a few minutes of perspiration, the colourless, viscous sweat of the hippopotamus gradually turns red, and then brown as the pigment polymerizes. Here we isolate and characterize the pigments responsible for this colour reaction. The unstable red and orange pigments turn out to be non-benzenoid aromatic compounds that are unexpectedly acidic and have antibiotic as well as sunscreen activity.
- Department of Applied Chemistry, Faculty of Science and Technology, Keio University, 3-14-1 Hiyoshi, Kohoku-ku, Yokohama 223-8522, Japan
- Present address: Kyoto Pharmaceutical University, 1 Shichono-cho, Misasagi, Yamashina-ku, Kyoto 607-8412, Japan
- Ueno Zoological Gardens, 9-83 Ueno Kouen, Taitou-ku, Tokyo 110-8711, Japan
Correspondence to: Kimiko Hashimoto1,2 Email: kimikoh@mb.kyoto-phu.ac.jp
HTTP Status 500 -
type Exception report
message
description The server encountered an internal error () that prevented it from fulfilling this request.
exception
javax.servlet.ServletException: Servlet execution threw an exception
root cause
java.lang.OutOfMemoryError
note The full stack trace of the root cause is available in the Tomcat logs.