How do mantis shrimp see colors we can't?
Shrimp's Rainbow Secret
How do mantis shrimp see colors we can't?
You see a rainbow — red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet. Six colors, maybe a few more if you squint. A mantis shrimp looks at the same world and sees twelve base colors, plus combinations you and I will never imagine. How does a shrimp the size of your thumb see colors that don't exist for us?
To understand, start with your own eye. The back of your eyeball is covered in tiny sensors called cones. You have three types: one catches red light, one catches green, one catches blue. Every color you've ever seen — the orange of a sunset, the purple of a grape — is your brain mixing signals from those three cones.
