LadyBug
Well-Known Member
can bunnies see in color? i was just wondering how much Jamie can see that i do(like lovely pink
inkbouce:....................)
inkbouce:....................)
Seeing in Color?
- Thread starter LadyBug
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swanlake
Well-Known Member
i remember reading somewhere that they see in mostly green and blues.
i don't know if its true or not.
i don't know if its true or not.
Korr_and_Sophie
Well-Known Member
I remember reading somewhere that they can see some color. Mostly to be able to distinguish what is edible form what isn't. I don't know what colors they can see though
Marietta
Well-Known Member
What Swanlake said is correct. They candistinguish black and white and can seegreens and blues. The red and yellow palette (i.e. the "warm"colours) is just different shades of grey for them, though. So, pink that you mention must be something like a light grey to their eyes.
Marietta
Marietta
irishmist
Well-Known Member
I once had a dwarf rabbit named Cleo, at one time she was small enough to be contained in one of those small animal corrals. After a while she discovered she could hop out of it. Each panel was a different colour 2 or more of red green yellow and blue. She would only jump over the yellow panels, I imagine that is because it was the first one she tried. Once we had figured this out we removed the yellow panels and she stayed in the corral. So they definately see a difference somehow.
gentle giants
Well-Known Member
Irishmist, that is hilarious! I can just picture her going "Wait....I know it was here somewhere..." :biggrin2:
Hazel-Mom
Well-Known Member
I knew rabbits had dichromatic vision (they have only the blue and the green color receptors in the eye) but I asked my husband to ask his friend in the biology department to be sure.
Well, the short answer is.... that there is no short answer!
Rabbits do have only blue and green "cones" (the color-seeing cells in the eye), so their vision is sort of what a color blind person would see (a good explanation of that can be found on this website: http://webexhibits.org/causesofcolor/2.html It also shows examples of what the world looks like to color blind people.)
But, their cones are sensitive to slightly different wavelenghts than human ones, so they probably do see a little more green than color blind humans. They most clearly see blues, and yellows would be really obvious though, so I'm not surprised Cleo prefered the yellow panels. Whether they see pink would depend on what colors make up the pink, if it's mainly red then it would look grey, if on the other hand there's some blue in the mix, it would look blue.
This color blindness may improve detection of edges and contours, so they may not see all colors, but things stand out more against certain backgrounds.
Rabbits have much less "cones" than humans however, but they have proportionally more "rods", the cells that detect light and dark. That's why they see a lot clearer than humans in much lower light levels. After all, they are crepuscular, which means they are more active at dawn and dusk, when colors are much less important.
So they may see less clearly in full daylight, and things would look slightly more "grainy", but not that much.
Recent tests have also shown that the color cells in the rabbit's eye are not distributed evenly all over the eye, but there are 2 "bands", one on the bottom part with mainly "blue cones", one in the middle with mainly "green cones" (Rats have them too, for those with ratties). Researchers are not quite sure what the purpose of those bands are, but the theory is, that rabbits use the bottom part of the eye to look up at the sky, so anytrhing against the blue of the sky would stand out very clearly ( with only the blue type of cone you see everything in blue and greys). The green band is supposedly used to scan the ground level up to the horizon, and makes everything stand out against the "green" (which actually looks more yellow to them).
So it's not so easy for us humans to imagine what rabbits see, it's quite complicated.
Now if only we could teach them to paint us a picture.... :biggrin2:.
Well, the short answer is.... that there is no short answer!
Rabbits do have only blue and green "cones" (the color-seeing cells in the eye), so their vision is sort of what a color blind person would see (a good explanation of that can be found on this website: http://webexhibits.org/causesofcolor/2.html It also shows examples of what the world looks like to color blind people.)
But, their cones are sensitive to slightly different wavelenghts than human ones, so they probably do see a little more green than color blind humans. They most clearly see blues, and yellows would be really obvious though, so I'm not surprised Cleo prefered the yellow panels
. Whether they see pink would depend on what colors make up the pink, if it's mainly red then it would look grey, if on the other hand there's some blue in the mix, it would look blue.This color blindness may improve detection of edges and contours, so they may not see all colors, but things stand out more against certain backgrounds.
Rabbits have much less "cones" than humans however, but they have proportionally more "rods", the cells that detect light and dark. That's why they see a lot clearer than humans in much lower light levels. After all, they are crepuscular, which means they are more active at dawn and dusk, when colors are much less important.
So they may see less clearly in full daylight, and things would look slightly more "grainy", but not that much.
Recent tests have also shown that the color cells in the rabbit's eye are not distributed evenly all over the eye, but there are 2 "bands", one on the bottom part with mainly "blue cones", one in the middle with mainly "green cones" (Rats have them too, for those with ratties
). Researchers are not quite sure what the purpose of those bands are, but the theory is, that rabbits use the bottom part of the eye to look up at the sky, so anytrhing against the blue of the sky would stand out very clearly ( with only the blue type of cone you see everything in blue and greys). The green band is supposedly used to scan the ground level up to the horizon, and makes everything stand out against the "green" (which actually looks more yellow to them).So it's not so easy for us humans to imagine what rabbits see, it's quite complicated.
Now if only we could teach them to paint us a picture.... :biggrin2:.
Hazel-Mom
Well-Known Member
I wasn't allowed to edit my post anymore so just adding in a new one...
Ofcourse, all of the above is just the start, the purely "mechanical" explanation of light input, biology of the eye, etc.... It's in the brain that further processing of the visual signals occurs, and most of all, where comprehention takes place.
One theory is that sight, and especially the understanding of what is seen, is also modified by the other senses, like smell, hearing, etc.
And since we really have no way of knowing what exactly goes on in a bunny's mind, we can only guess at how they understand the world as they see it.
Ofcourse, all of the above is just the start, the purely "mechanical" explanation of light input, biology of the eye, etc.... It's in the brain that further processing of the visual signals occurs, and most of all, where comprehention takes place.
One theory is that sight, and especially the understanding of what is seen, is also modified by the other senses, like smell, hearing, etc.
And since we really have no way of knowing what exactly goes on in a bunny's mind, we can only guess at how they understand the world as they see it.
