Are sharks color blind?
Date: 21.1.2011
Sharks are unable to distinguish colors, even though their close relatives rays and chimaeras have some color vision, according to new research by Dr. Nathan Scott Hart and colleagues from the University of Western Australia and the University of Queensland in Australia.
Their study shows that although the eyes of sharks function over a wide range of light levels, they only have a single long-wavelength-sensitive cone* type in the retina and therefore are potentially totally color blind. Hart and team's findings are published online in Springer's journal Naturwissenschaften.
This new research on how sharks see may help to prevent attacks on humans. Our study shows that contrast against the background, rather than colour per se, may be more important for object detection by sharks.
Original Paper:
Nathan Scott Hart, Susan Michelle Theiss, Blake Kristin Harahush, Shaun Patrick Collin. Microspectrophotometric evidence for cone monochromacy in sharks. Naturwissenschaften, 2011; DOI: 10.1007/s00114-010-0758-8
Source:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/01/110118092224.htm
