100 Things: #29

[pyran]

Cone cells are cells in the eye that allow someone to detect colors.  Humans have three types -- one for red, blue, and green -- that allow us to see millions of colors.  Adding a fourth doesn't just add one color -- it would add the ability to detect thousands more.

With that in mind, the following I find fascinating:

- Dogs have two types of cone

Comments

[fishsupreme]

What I always found most interesting about this is that the whole idea of "primary colors" -- red, blue, and either yellow or green depending on if we're talking lights or pigments -- is not a characteristic of light, but a characteristic of our eyes. If we had happened to evolve cone cells that detected slightly higher or lower frequencies, we'd consider those colors primary and make all the others by mixing those three colors instead. Likewise, to a bird there are four primary colors.

[pyran]

Or, in the case of the mantis shrimp, 16 primary colors. Can you even imagine? I can't.