For Whales and Seals the Ocean is Not Blue: A Visual Pigment Loss in Marine Mammals

• Main Authors: Leo Peichl, Guènther Behrmann, Ronald H. H. Kroèger
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 2001
• Subjects: colour vision; cone photoreceptors; mammalian retina; pinnipeds; whales; Cones The; Cones, The; toothed whales
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.486.616; http://www-stud.rbi.informatik.uni-frankfurt.de/~krotzky/Neuro-Seminar/Peichl1.pdf

Most terrestrial mammals have colour vision based on two spectrally different visual pigments located in two types of retinal cone photoreceptors, i.e. they are cone dichromats with long-to-middle-wave-sensitive (commonly green) L-cones and short-wave-sensitive (commonly blue) S-cones. With visual p...