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From the July 2006 Scientific American Magazine | 1 comments

What Birds See ( Preview )

Evolution has endowed birds with a system of color vision that surpasses that of all mammals, including humans

By Timothy H. Goldsmith   

 
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We humans

customarily

assume that our visual system sits atop a pinnacle of evolutionary success. It enables us to appreciate space in three dimensions, to detect objects from a distance and to move about safely. We are exquisitely able to recognize other individuals and to read their emotions from mere glimpses of their faces. In fact, we are such visual animals that we have difficulty imagining the sensory worlds of creatures whose capacities extend to other realms--a night-hunting bat, for example, that finds small insects by listening to the echoes of its own high-pitched call.

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