Significance of color, calories, and climate to the visual ecology of catarrhines
Here we describe correlations among visual ecology and the physiochemical properties of fruits and leaves consumed by four species of catarrhine primate: Cercopithecus ascanius, Colobus guereza, Pan troglodytes, and Piliocolobus badius. Collectively, their diet was diverse, with each species relying on fruits and leaves to different extents. The mean chromaticity of both foods, as perceived […]
Why Aye-Ayes See Blue
The capacity for cone-mediated color vision varies among nocturnal primates. Some species are colorblind, having lost the functionality of their short-wavelength-sensitive-1 (SWS1) opsin pigment gene. In other species, such as the aye-aye (Daubentonia madagascariensis), the SWS1 gene remains intact. Recent studies focused on aye-ayes indicate that this gene has been maintained by natural selection and […]