You may have heard before that mantis shrimp have amazing color vision. Their eyes are very uniquely constructed, and in that sense they are amazing.

mantis shrimp eyes - by Ryan Blakeley - Ryan's Corner

submited by

Style Pass

2023-02-04 17:00:18

You may have heard before that mantis shrimp have amazing color vision. Their eyes are very uniquely constructed, and in that sense they are amazing. But it turns out they discern color variations worse than we do.

Mantis shrimp have twelve photoreceptor classes. Humans have three. We derive a spectrum of colors through comparisons between our three classes; this is called the opponent process or opponency. Mantis shrimp do not do this. They collapse the spectrum into just twelve colors.

Mantis shrimp were trained to attack one of two colored lights in exchange for a reward…Humans can distinguish colors whose wavelengths differ by 1 to 4 nanometers. But the mantis shrimp failed with colors that were [less than] 25 nanometers apart, which is roughly the gap between pure yellow and orange.

The funny thing is they are not really motivated by food since they have such low caloric requirements. The researchers could only test them once a day before the shrimp would lose interest.