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Scotopic colour vision in nocturnal hawkmoths

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Author

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

Publishing year

2002

Language

English

Pages

922-925

Publication/Series

Nature

Volume

419

Issue

6910

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Nature Publishing Group

Topic

  • Zoology

Status

Published

Research group

  • Lund Vision Group

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 0028-0836