what does it mean when people say that other animals can see “more colours” than humans?
In: Biology
Look at this image: https://images.app.goo.gl/B9rDqmo1ohMJzRym9
“Colour” as we see it is a spectrum of frequencies of light. Humans can see colours from the 400-700 range.
Bees (just one example) can see from the 300-600 range. Meaning they can’t see the very deep reds from the 600-700 bracket, but can see colours from the 300-400 range that we humans cannot (we don’t know exactly what colour this range looks like, since we can’t see it, but all signs suggest it’s purple).
Now look at this image: https://images.app.goo.gl/MK8cQVHGAS1Rmx6T9
You’ve probably heard of most of the forms of light outside of human range on this image. X-rays are used for medical scans, infrared light is used in TV remotes, and radio waves are used to transmit radio signals (yes, radio signals are technically a type of “light” – we just can’t see them!)
Different animals can see different ranges on this chart, but most of them don’t deviate too far from human visibility levels – many animals have far *worse* colour perception than humans (our eyes are actually pretty high tier in the animal kingdom), but there are a decent number who see “more” than us.
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