Different views of the world: How mammals see colours
Prof. Dr. Leo Peichl, Max-Planck-Institut für Hirnforschung on October 31, 2011
Colour vision is a very useful ability that is widespread among vertebrates. Many fish, reptiles and birds have excellent “tetrachromatic” colour vision. The mammals were less successful in this evolution. Humans and Old World primates have evolved relatively good “trichromatic” colour vision, but most other mammals are stuck with limited “dichromatic” colour vision. The presentation explains the basics of mammalian colour vision and discusses zoologically interesting deviations from this basic pattern.