Colour Vision: Random Retina of Butterflies Explained

Colour Vision: Random Retina of Butterflies Explained

Butterfly eyes are random mosaics built of three ommatidia types, each with a different set of photoreceptors and pigments. What defines the combined features in each ommatidium? A new study has solved the puzzle.

Polarisation-dependent colour vision in Papilio butterflies.

Butterflies of the genus Papilio have polarisation-sensitive photoreceptors in all regions of the eye, and different spectral types of receptor are sensitive to different e-vector orientations. We have studied the consequences of this eye design for colour vision in behavioural tests and find that Papilio spp. see false colours due to the polarisation of light. They discriminate between vertica...

Colour-Vision and Colour-Blindness

Colour vision

The immense range of colours that we see belies the relative simplicity of the system underlying colour vision. We see colours because each of the three distinct types of cone photoreceptor in our retinae is sensitive to a different range of wavelengths of light. The L, M and S cones, colloquially called red (R), green (G), and blue (B), are selective for long, middle and short wavelengths, res...

Colour vision

Editorial Colour vision 2006 is an important bicentenary for the Ulster Medical Society. In 806, the Belfast Medical Society was founded and the later formation of the Belfast Clinical and Pathological Society in 853, allowed amalgamation of both societies to form the current Ulster Medical Society in 862. The vision of the early founders of the Belfast Medical Society, was far sighted, and som...