How Do Other Animals See the World?

If you haven’t given it much thought, you probably think non-human animals see the world the same way we do. The truth is the world looks very different to most other animals than it does to us.

And this discrepancy between how non-human animals see the world and how we do can be a problem for wildlife biologists. To address this, Daniel Hanley, biologist at George Mason University and his team published their results in PLOS Biology on a new recording system that could help better capture how animals see the world.

How Animals See the World

Most birds can see ultraviolet light. This comes in handy for mating displays and other behaviors since many birds have feathers that reflect UV light.

For snakes that hunt during the day, they have built-in sunglasses — lenses that block UV light, which help them see better in bright light. For snakes that hunt at night, their lenses let in more UV light so they can see better in the dark. On top of that, many snakes, including pit vipers, have infrared vision.

When it comes to dogs, you may have heard that they are colorblind, but that’s not entirely true. Dogs can see blues and yellows just fine, but they have trouble telling reds from greens, much like a human who is red-green colorblind.

Like dogs, cats can distinguish blues and yellows, but have trouble with reds and greens. Cats can’t see in total darkness but are much better than humans at seeing in dim light.

Read More: What Animals Can Sense That Humans Can’t

Studying Animal Vision

Many animals, like flies, depend on color in a variety of ways — to help them find mates or food or prey. So biologists who study animals need to know what the world looks like to those animals. But still images aren’t always useful. Scientists need to know what the animal sees as it moves through its environment.

Hanley provides a good analogy for why this is important. Say you’re at a party and someone tells an embarrassing story. Someone else blushes. Clearly, the story embarrassed that person. But if you saw only a still photo, out of context, you might think the person was sunburned or just naturally ruddy skinned.

Not only would you not know that the person blushed in response to a story, but you also wouldn’t even consider that possibility. You’d need to see a video to know what happened before the blush, and how the blush appeared and spread across the person’s face. Scientists need that kind of context, too, when studying animals in the wild.

Read More: Researchers Get a Peek at How Other Animals See the World

New Technology to Capture Animal Eyesight in the Wild

Until recently, however, it’s been difficult to get video that captures the world, in all its motion, the way animals really see it. (Those gorgeous wildlife documentaries portray what the animals look like to us, not what they look like to each other.) But Hanley and his team developed a new technology that can do just that.

The recording system uses a beam splitter to separate the different types of light. A special lens lets UV light pass, and that light is reflected and passed into a camera that’s sensitive to it. The visible light goes into a separate camera that’s sensitive to visible light. Then, using a mathematical algorithm, the system combines the two sets of images into a high-quality video that reflects what the world looks like to animals with different types of color vision.

This technology will be useful for researchers studying animals in their natural, dynamic environments. And it will be available to anyone who needs it. Hanley’s team is making the method, all the plans for assembling the system, and the code available for other scientists to use.

Read More: Why These 7 Animals Have Eyes That Glow in the Dark

Article Sources

Our writers at Discovermagazine.com use peer-reviewed studies and high-quality sources for our articles, and our editors review for scientific accuracy and editorial standards. Review the sources used below for this article:

• Biologist at George Mason University. Daniel Hanley

• PLOS Biology. Recording animal-view videos of the natural world using a novel camera system and software package

• National Wildlife Federation. True Colors: How Birds See the World

• Natural History Museum. Study sheds light on snake vision

• American College of Veterinary Ophthalmologists. Vision in Pets

• Behavioral Ecology. Chromatic and achromatic vision: parameter choice and limitations for reliable model predictions

Avery Hurt is a freelance science journalist. In addition to writing for Discover, she writes regularly for a variety of outlets, both print and online, including National Geographic, Science News Explores, Medscape, and WebMD. She’s the author of “Bullet With Your Name on It: What You Will Probably Die From and What You Can Do About It,” Clerisy Press 2007, as well as several books for young readers. Avery got her start in journalism while attending university, writing for the school newspaper and editing the student non-fiction magazine. Though she writes about all areas of science, she is particularly interested in neuroscience, the science of consciousness, and AI–interests she developed while earning a degree in philosophy.

Read More