If you want a nice take on what that would be like for humans - Greg Egan has an interesting short story called “Seventh Sight” about people bio hacking themselves to gain expanded spectral perception. It’s in his Instantiation Anthology.
_doctor_love•Aug 14, 2026
Very different vibe but reminds me of The Oatmeal's tribute to the mighty Mantis Shrimp.
As long as we are already on a tangent about rods, cones, and visual perception: one of my favorite fact is that the occasional genetic mutation that creates color blindness in men sometimes leaves a woman with "tetrachromacy". Four sets of rods and cones which increases color perception from some one-million colors to one-hundred million colors.
_doctor_love•Aug 14, 2026
There was a neat story on the San Diego local news some years ago about a woman artist who was a tetrachromat. Fascinating interview. This woman said that the downside of perceiving additional colors is that something like the cereal aisle in a common supermarket could be a total sensory overload. But she of course said also that she appreciated the extra things she could see. :)
nomel•Aug 14, 2026
A fact related to something in the ocean, cephalopods have photoreceptors that are oriented neatly with nerves in the back, as you would expect. But mammals have the nerves coming out the front, in the way of the path of light! [1]
So, cephalopods have sensors that match a modern camera that's "back illuminated", with metal layer/routing out of the way, and humans have a old type "front" illuminated sensor [2].
Be thankful we're not mantis shrimp. Color displays and cameras would be such a pain to make
kulahan•Aug 14, 2026
One fun fact I learned recently.
The cavitation bubbles mantis shrimps create when they strike? We use that same technology to perform direct field manipulation in eye “surgery”. I put it in quotes because I’m not sure if that’s an appropriate word anymore! There is no mechanical slicing! We just place the energy where it needs to be, and thousands of cavitations reshape the eye!
The process is called SMILE.
Tagbert•Aug 14, 2026
I'm a little surprised at how little difference there is.
Yes, some of the colors shift due to the false-color addition of the UV channel but there were no new patterns or highlighted areas.
unselect5917•Aug 14, 2026
Check the budgie.
>The common parakeet or budgie has some interesting UV features. There is a small UV reflective patch on the chin, which appears dark violet to humans. Also, unlike most yellow birds, the yellow feathers on the head of the parakeet strongly absorb ultraviolet light.
throwaway5752•Aug 14, 2026
Happy to realize this did not say ultraviolent. A small but confusing Clockwork Orange reading mistake.
NopIdoN•Aug 15, 2026
a cassowary can disembowel a droog but a woodpecker is pure weapon
croisillon•Aug 14, 2026
they could at least show cassowaries!
rwmj•Aug 14, 2026
My favourite blue tit fact is that they are sexually dichromatic under UV light only. The male crown is brighter in UV and females prefer males with brighter crowns. Mere humans can't tell the difference.
Made my day. Love it when you can tell they could have titled it something else but decided the joke was technically accurate and worth it.
rao-v•Aug 15, 2026
Read this as "Male humans can't tell the difference." and found it comic
andai•Aug 14, 2026
I read a passage in a book growing up, I can't remember what book it was, but it was about how crows are only black to humans, they can see different colors than we can so they're very colorful to each other, covered in all sorts of brilliant colors.
Another fun fact: bees can see utraviolet, and flowers are "designed" for bees, so many of the patterns are invisible to humans, but visible under UV photography:
> It turns out that crows lack UV-reflective patches, and that the sexes really do look the same, plumage-wise. However, the research in Yorzinski’s lab unearthed subtle changes that indicate age: On the sides, back and even under the tail, feathers changed in hue, both in the human visual range and in the UV or violet range as the birds reached the age of 3.
trhway•Aug 15, 2026
While seeing the same wavelength range, human tetrachromats (4 types instead of 3 RGB receptor cones in retina) recognize 100M colors instead of the standard 1M.
glaslong•Aug 14, 2026
So much of the world passes us by out of sight
Oh to be a mantis shrimp, have 16 different photoreceptors, and see not only into IR and UV, but the polarization of light too!
8 Comments
https://www.webexhibits.org/causesofcolor/17B.html
https://theoatmeal.com/comics/mantis_shrimp
As long as we are already on a tangent about rods, cones, and visual perception: one of my favorite fact is that the occasional genetic mutation that creates color blindness in men sometimes leaves a woman with "tetrachromacy". Four sets of rods and cones which increases color perception from some one-million colors to one-hundred million colors.
So, cephalopods have sensors that match a modern camera that's "back illuminated", with metal layer/routing out of the way, and humans have a old type "front" illuminated sensor [2].
[1] Nice image here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/10150112797390640/posts/1017...
[2] https://www.digitalcameraworld.com/features/what-is-a-bsi-se...
The cavitation bubbles mantis shrimps create when they strike? We use that same technology to perform direct field manipulation in eye “surgery”. I put it in quotes because I’m not sure if that’s an appropriate word anymore! There is no mechanical slicing! We just place the energy where it needs to be, and thousands of cavitations reshape the eye!
The process is called SMILE.
Yes, some of the colors shift due to the false-color addition of the UV channel but there were no new patterns or highlighted areas.
>The common parakeet or budgie has some interesting UV features. There is a small UV reflective patch on the chin, which appears dark violet to humans. Also, unlike most yellow birds, the yellow feathers on the head of the parakeet strongly absorb ultraviolet light.
Comes from this rather brilliantly titled paper: Blue tits are ultraviolet tits https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1688906/
Made my day. Love it when you can tell they could have titled it something else but decided the joke was technically accurate and worth it.
Another fun fact: bees can see utraviolet, and flowers are "designed" for bees, so many of the patterns are invisible to humans, but visible under UV photography:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UV_coloration_in_flowers
https://www.wildflower.org/magazine/native-plants/a-differen...
> It turns out that crows lack UV-reflective patches, and that the sexes really do look the same, plumage-wise. However, the research in Yorzinski’s lab unearthed subtle changes that indicate age: On the sides, back and even under the tail, feathers changed in hue, both in the human visual range and in the UV or violet range as the birds reached the age of 3.
Oh to be a mantis shrimp, have 16 different photoreceptors, and see not only into IR and UV, but the polarization of light too!