‘Life in Color’ with David Attenborough
The docu-series on Netflix shows us how the animal kingdom uses colour to conceal, confuse and caution
In 2018, researchers from Newcastle University gave tiny 3D glasses to praying mantises to understand how they see the world. The mantis is the only insect known to have a stereo vision, and the team was trying to figure out how its vision is different from ours, given its extremely small brain.
Taking this a step further, the new docuseries on Netflix,
Life in Colour with David Attenborough, explores in detail how different animals perceive the world they live in and how colour plays an important role not just in mating, but also in raising its young, hiding from predators, and even maintaining territory.
“Who cares more about your choice of living room palette than your pet chameleon? Not only does he absorb, transform, and re-emit color (changing to regulate temperature and communicate), his eyes are almost all ‘cone’ and no ‘rod,’ so he sees lots of colors (including the ultraviolet spectrum) but little contrast.
Your chameleon’s eyes operate independently on little turrets so that he can watch for predators across a total field of vision of 342 degrees. If you need to creep up on him to grab your copy of Wallpaper back, you’ll find he has a blind spot of 18 degrees just behind his head.”