Cats and dogs have more rods, the receptors responsible for seeing in the dark. This means that our pets have poorer colour vision than us, but superior night vision, and are also much better at tracking movement. Hello, our cat will be on her nightly prowl, able to see things eight times better than us in the dark, helped by the tapetum, a layer of cells at the back of her eye.
These reflect light on to the retina, even at low densities. The tapetum, which humans don’t have, also explains why, when you shine a torch in cats’ eyes, they seem to glow.
As one would expect with our nearest relatives, apes and most monkeys have good colour vision.
As one would expect with our nearest relatives, apes and most monkeys have good colour vision. They, more than any other group of animals, use bright colours in sexual display. (Those few which do suffer from colour-blindness find their sexual lives seriously limited.)
Scientists have conducted many experiments to ascertain which animals can see in colour - and made some surprising discoveries.
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