I’ve read that many insects and birds can see into the ultraviolet, and wikipedia says some animals can see into infrared (although no specifics, and no cite). Any species that can do both?
Somewhat related - are there any species with gaps in the color range they can see? As I understand it, color perception in most (all?) animals comes from a set of color-receptive cone cells, which at least in humans overlap plenty, so I kind of doubt it, but you never know. At least, I don’t. Maybe you do, and then you can tell me.
If you count a pit viper’s pits as “vision”, then they can both see in the infrared and have a gap in their vision (between what they see with their pits and what they see with their eyes).
I think cuttlefish might be able to see both UV and IR, but I’m not sure about that.
Oh, and their claw can move so fast that it creates a cavitation bubble in the water that has sonoluminescence and, for a very brief period of time, it as hot as the surface of the sun.
If it weren’t for the lenses of your eyes being opaque at those wavelengths, you could see somewhat into the UV without any change. At one time the plastic lenses they used for replacements were transparent in the UV and people with them could see UV. I understand that nowadays, replacement lenses are not UV-transparent, so you can’t get that effect anymore.
Bees can see UV, but they can’t see red. Which seems very strange since there are so many reddish flowers out there. Apparently, these flowers look black to bees if they don’t also reflect in the UV.
Something like this has been done in mice. In this study, mice were genetically engineered to express a third visual pigment in their retinas, allowing them to detect light at three different wavelengths instead of the usual two. These mice had colour vision instead of the dichromatic vision that mice and most eutherian mammals have had for millions of years. Amazingly, their brains seemed to have no problem interpreting this novel information – they were able to discriminate between colours that mice have never seen before.
Also, there’s evidence that some mothers of colour-blind boys may be effectively tetrachromatic (four visual pigments instead of three) and have greatly enhanced colour vision. They appear to be able to discriminate between many more shades of colour than the rest of us.
Despite the impressive claims that the mantis shrimp has a great many color receptors (and some varieties can detect linearly and even circularly polarized light), I don’t think its visual range is extremely great – many species can see further into the UV than people. The 12 visual sensors are more about spectral resolution, not about extending the range. So can bees and, I think, horseshoe crabs. as Far as I know, no species sees far into the IR. I’ve never seen a comparison on a wavelength scale, but I suspect that such species whose vision extends to the UV represents the “largest visual range”
Pit Viper Infrared Vision uses a different set of organs and isn’t continuous with the range sen by the eye. The “pit” acts like a pinhole camera with a huge pinhole, so vision isn’t really great in the IR – they mainly use it for direction sensing, not vision.
