FLICKR, DONALD JUSA
Color plays a significant role in the courtship rituals of some jumping spiders, like Habronattus pyrrithrix. Male jumping spiders can be covered in patterns that include bright reds and oranges. Despite this, scientists have only identified photoreceptors for green and ultraviolet (UV) light in the eyes of H. pyrrithrix. In a study published in Current Biology this week (May 18), researchers at the University of Pittsburgh reported on their discovery of a light-filtering strategy H. pyrrithrix uses to broaden its color perception.
“It’s a sweet way of solving the problem,” Gil Menda, a neuroethologist at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, who was not involved in the study, told National Geographic.
The Pittsburgh team sectioned H. pyrrithrix retinas and shined light through them to determine ...
