The monkey's vision occupies an important place among the six senses inherent in it. It helps you navigate in space, get food and protect yourself from danger. But the most surprising thing is that vision in different types of monkeys can be different.
Instructions
Step 1
According to research by scientists, mammals, including monkeys, lost their color vision at the very beginning of their evolution, having lost two of the four opsins, a gene for a light-sensitive protein. That is why now almost all animals have black and white vision.
Step 2
However, some species of monkeys eventually regained trichromatic vision. Like humans, they have three types of light-sensitive cells that are tuned to the wavelengths of green, red, and blue. The vivid representatives of such monkeys are gorillas, orangutans, chimpanzees, as well as howler monkeys living in Central and South America.
Step 3
New World monkeys see differently. Nocturnal South American durukuli, for example, have monochrome (black and white) vision. Males in spider monkeys and clawed monkeys are dichromats that do not see shades of green or red. But in females of these species, tricolor and bicolor vision is found in a ratio of 60:40. Since monkeys live in large groups, the presence of even one female with tricolor vision greatly facilitates the survival of the entire group.
Step 4
It is still not known for certain what gave impetus to the development of tricolor vision. Some scientists associate this with the loss of a significant part of the sense of smell, others - with the way of life and nutrition, since only color vision allows monkeys to find young and juicy leaves of certain plants that feed on certain types of monkeys.
Step 5
Meanwhile, monochromatic and dichromatic vision also have advantages. The first allows monkeys to better navigate in the dark, which is especially important for nocturnal fools, and the second helps to recognize the camouflage of predators and prey. The latter are grasshoppers, lizards and frogs, mimicking with the help of light.
