I cant think of how scientists discovered that some snakes have thermal vision. Like how would they know something like that?
In: Biology
It’s partly based on the types of cells found in their eyes and knowledge of what they can see in humans. We know rods and cones are in human eyes, and we know that rods allow for black and white vision, especially at night. Cones allow for color vision. If an animal has no cones, we know it can’t see color. This can be expanded to other organs once we know what they do in some animals.
The other half is observations of behavior. If a snake can strike at warm prey but not cold prey when placed in absolute darkness, it stands to reason that they can sense warmth. You can expand that out with different tests. In dogs, scientists create puzzles very similar to the tests used for colorblindness in humans. If dogs can consistently get treats for completing a test to distinguish blue from yellow, but can’t do the same for red and blue, we have a pretty good idea of what they can see.
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