Animal camouflage has long been used to illustrate the power of natural selection, and
provides an excellent testbed for investigating the trade‐offs affecting the adaptive value of …

Early color-matching studies established that normal human color vision is trichromatic.
Subsequent research revealed a causal link between trichromacy and the presence in the …

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

Birds have impressive physiological adaptations for colour vision, including tetrachromacy
and coloured oil droplets, yet it is not clear exactly how well birds can discriminate the …

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 …

Colour discrimination is based on opponent photoreceptor interactions, and limited by
receptor noise. In dim light, photon shot noise impairs colour vision, and in vertebrates, the …

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 …

For many years, it was believed that bird and mammal communication 'in the dark of the
night'relied exclusively on vocal and chemical signalling. However, in recent decades …

Bird colour vision is mediated by single cones, while double cones and rods mediate
luminance vision in bright and dim light, respectively. In daylight conditions, birds use colour …

Oil droplets are spherical organelles found in the cone photoreceptors of vertebrates. They
are generally assumed to focus incident light into the outer segment, and thereby improve …