Scotopic colour vision in nocturnal hawkmoths
Författare
Summary, in English
Humans are colour-blind at night, and it has been assumed that this is true of all animals. But colour vision is as useful for discriminating objects1 at night as it is during the day. Here we show, through behavioural experiments, that the nocturnal hawkmoth Deilephila elpenor uses colour vision to discriminate coloured stimuli at intensities corresponding to dim starlight (0.0001 cd m-2). It can do this even if the illumination colour changes, thereby showing colour constancya property of true colour vision systems2. In identical conditions humans are completely colour-blind. Our calculations show that the possession of three photoreceptor classes reduces the absolute sensitivity of the eye, which indicates that colour vision has a high ecological relevance in nocturnal moths. In addition, the photoreceptors of a single ommatidium absorb too few photons for reliable discrimination, indicating that spatial and/or temporal summation must occur for colour vision to be possible. Taken together, our results show that colour vision occurs at nocturnal intensities in a biologically relevant context
Avdelning/ar
Publiceringsår
2002
Språk
Engelska
Sidor
922-925
Publikation/Tidskrift/Serie
Nature
Volym
419
Issue
6910
Dokumenttyp
Artikel i tidskrift
Förlag
Nature Publishing Group
Ämne
- Zoology
Status
Published
Forskningsgrupp
- Lund Vision Group
ISBN/ISSN/Övrigt
- ISSN: 0028-0836