The colorful phenotypes of birds have long provided rich source material for evolutionary
biologists. Avian plumage, beaks, skin, and eggs—which exhibit a stunning range of cryptic …

Highlights•Bird colour vision depends on opsins, retinal mosaic, ocular media and oil
droplets.•Birds use spectral cues for phototaxis, magnetoreception and circadian …

Throughout their lives animals must complete many tasks, including finding food, avoiding
predators, attracting mates, and navigating through a complex and dynamic environment …

Ultraviolet (UV)-sensitive visual pigments are widespread in the animal kingdom but many
animals, for example primates, block UV light from reaching their retina by pigmented …

Theories of sexual and natural selection predict coevolution of visual perception with
conspecific colour and/or the light environment animals occupy. One way to test these …

To distinguish colors, the nervous system must compare the activity of distinct subtypes of
photoreceptors that are maximally sensitive to different portions of the light spectrum. In …

The evolutionary relationship between signals and animal senses has broad significance,
with potential consequences for speciation, and for the efficacy and honesty of biological …

The brilliantly coloured cone oil droplets of the avian retina function as long-pass cut-off
filters that tune the spectral sensitivity of the photoreceptors and are hypothesized to …

The molecular mechanisms underlying the enormous diversity of visual pigment wavelength
sensitivities found in nature have been the focus of many molecular evolutionary studies …

Most vertebrates have UV-sensitive vision, but the UV sensitivity of their eyes is limited by
the transmittance of the ocular media, and the specific contribution of the different media …