Based on Dr. Neitz's estimates, there could be 99 million women in the world with true four-color vision. However, before they pat themselves on the back for their superior evolution, he said, it is important to note that humans are just getting back to where birds, amphibians and reptiles have been for eons.
Do Women see More Colors than Men? (Sciplanet)Those creatures have long had four-color vision, but a main difference is that their fourth type of color detector is in the high-frequency ultraviolet range, beyond where humans can see. In fact, that conclusion allowed scientists to figure out recently why the males of some species of birds did not appear to have brighter plumage than the females, Dr. Neitz said.
The problem was in the observers, not the birds, he said. When those species were viewed through ultraviolet detectors, the males had markedly different feathers than the females.
Fear not men! For despite being excluded from the beautiful colors the rest of the animal kingdom has access to, you can see (again, on average) motion better than your opposite sex. This is why it is the fate of all men to march about oblivious, existing solely in a gray world without color, sensitive only to motion, lumbering around like the Tyrannosauruses in Jurassic Park as our faces become distended, our skin scaly and rough, our arms becoming tinier as our legs and bellies grow huge, and all the while we glare beadily out of our cavernous eye sockets so we can catch, at a glimmer, the smallest of movements. It is only when activated by such a tick of motion that we come alive and can speedily shift our bulk into a killing blow dealt with lethal grace. An athleticism now mostly reserved for flies that get into the house. (via)
Image: Tetrachromacy/Wikipedia
