A new study shows that the mantis shrimp (Stomatopoda) has the ability to see color in a whole different way compared to other animals.
Justin Marshall, lead author of the study and a neurobiologist at the University of Queensland in Australia, said to LiveScience.com, "There is no other animal out there that has anything remotely like this."
He also compared the mantis shrimp's 400-million-year-old visual system to a satellite sensor which was not observed on any other animal eye. Unlike the average animal eye with a few color receptors, the mantis shrimp has 12 receptors which are used to recognize color with very little effort.
Other animals use only three color receptors and can be excited by different hues (red, green or blue light). While the mantis shrimp has 12 color receptors, it is easy to conclude that they have the ability to see a whole different spectrum of colors compared to other animals. But researchers have different results.
The mantis shrimp's eyes have the ability to differentiate wavelengths that were about 25 nanometers away from each other while humans can differentiate shades that are 1 nanometer to 4 nanometers apart. Their eyes can even see the difference between the colors yellow and orange.
The shrimp eyes are arranged in a band in the middle of the retina which is similar to a line-scan camera or spectral linear analyzer. Its eyes are similar to these devices because it uses sensors to scan its surrounding which then sends that information to a processorwhich can then be turned into a processed image.
Though the mantis shrimp cannot see a wide variety of color, they have a way of sensing the colors around them through the use of colored spots on their claws. Marshall stated "the color messages they're sending each other are something we don't understand, but they definitely use color to talk to each other".
This study was published in the Jan. 24 issue of Science.
