Thursday, December 1, 2011

Why Camouflage?

As a child I was told animals were colorblind,though I chose not to believe that. Why would animals coloring use camouflage to protect them from their predators if that were the case? I decided it was time to find out if I had been right. I don't know how recently these finding have become common knowledge but I thought if I hadn't heard about maybe there were others that hadn't either.
The general answer is most animals see color to some extent. A general rule is diurnal animals see color while nocturnal animals don't,but as with most rules there are exceptions. The presence of cones in the eye determines whether colors can be seen,with lack of cones the eye usually have a greater number of rods allowing for keener night vision. One exception to the nocturnal rule is the owl as they have cones.Dogs and cats have 2 sets of cones,making them colorblind to specific colors,though they have more rods giving them greater night vision. The colors they see with most ease are blue and yellow.
In contrast humans have three sets of cones for detecting color in three different wavelengths,though each cone detects a wide spectrum that overlaps to create other hues. Colorblindness comes from a fault in both sets of retinal cones,it is more common in males because it is linked to the X chromosome and the genes are carried on the X chromosome of which males only have one. 12-20% of the white male population is colorblind.

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