Perhaps at some point in your life you have questioned whether other human beings have a vision of reality exactly the same as yours. That is, we are of the same species and we are formed under the same mold, our eyes are very similar. But this does not guarantee that the view we have is exactly the same as that of others. Now transfer that scenario to other species, whose physical constitution varies so much from ours. It is to be expected to find scenarios very different from what our eyes allow us to see and science confirms this. The vision of hummingbirds has a great chromatic capacity, they are capable of seeing colors that humans cannot even imagine.
The human eye has around 110 million cells called cones. In humans, there are three types of cones, each capable of capturing different light spectrums: red, green and blue. This is the system known as trichromatism that allows us to distinguish approximately one million different shades. Although of course this varies from person to person, since sight depends not only on the eyes, but on the interpretation of the brain.
But as expected, other species have evolved based on their needs to survive. And eyesight plays an important role when it comes to survival. Bees, for example, are also trichromatic, but unlike our eyes, their cones capture ultraviolet, blue and green light. For this reason, they live immersed in an ultraviolet world full of objects that seem to flash all the time.
What is the view of the hummingbird like?
Hummingbirds, for their part, have taken their vision to an even broader level. They have a tretrachromatic system in their eyes, made up of four types of cells specialized in capturing light. For this reason, they are able to distinguish a wide range of colors, including non-spectral ones. So not only are they able to visually distinguish ultraviolet light, but they also see colors that humans can’t even imagine.
Research from the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Princeton University concluded that hummingbird vision is essential for signaling and foraging. Other types of birds also have tetrachromatic systems in their eyes and it is even believed that they existed in dinosaurs.
“This color vision system is the norm in birds, some fish and reptiles, and almost certainly existed in dinosaurs. We consider that the ability to perceive many colors outside the spectrum (visible to humans) is not only an ability of hummingbirds, but a generalized characteristic of color vision in animals,” explains Stoddard, leader of the research.
And here we can highlight the fact that birds need to travel long distances without getting lost. Albert Einstein himself theorized about bird migrations and already in his time thought that sight would play a fundamental role in their sense of orientation. In conclusion, reality is not what we see or at least it is not the same reality for all living beings, much less for all species.