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RE: Tree of Life: The Primal Trichromacy: Colour vision
Hey @mobbs, I hope there's more to come before this series ends.
... discriminating the spectral modulations on the skin of conspecifics, presumably for the purpose of discriminating emotional states, socio-sexual signals and threat displays
Sounds like a good hypothesis, makes perfect sense if this is just another mechanism of survival, sounds like our DNA has been trying hard to make sure we won't go extinct.
But although this is true, they lack the brain capacity and energy to actually put these to use in the way we imagine.
Am I the only thinking there must be some sort of design errors? :P I mean why is the Mantis Shrimp equipped with stuff it can't even use? It's a weird world.
Have a good day :)
I already have two episodes in mind but that MIGHT be the end of it. I'm really excited to end it because of what comes after that...
As for the shrimp, it's mostly the processing behind interpreting the colour itself, rather than the number of photoreceptors. They probably just use all 12 in a different way. I read during this that 7 is the max one would need for absolute, peak and ideal vision, so 12 is conceptually just not necessary to evolve in nature at any point unless it functions in a different way!
I am struck by the fact that evolution is an expensive process. Species are dying to evolve, so to speak. Given that Mantis Shrimps have these photoreceptors, it is thus unlikely that those without the extra 5 receptors beyond ideal couldn't compete without undertaking the extra expense in development costs those receptors require.
It's far easier to believe that we know much less about how Mantis Shrimp process the input they spend a great deal on receiving from their 'unnecessary' photoreceptors than we think we do..
Pretty sure of it, in fact. Mantis Shrimp are ambush hunters. Vision is critical to them, and burdening it with extraneous and useless photoreceptors (particularly given the high probability that mutations are malign, rather than improving survivability, and the claim is they have done so a half dozen times more than necessary) is so unlikely as to be silly.
Thanks for the great post! I very much enjoyed it.
Yeah I think it's pretty clear we don't know all there is to know, but it also seems clear they simply use the photoreceptors differently to how we typically do, likely still to their fullest in their own context. They very likely still have excellent hunting vision, just not the array of magical splendour and awe-inspiring vibrancy that we imagine based on early news reports