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Ultraviolet vision and mate choice in zebra finches

journal contribution
posted on 1996-04-04, 00:00 authored by Andy Bennett, I Cuthill, J Partridge, E Maier
SEXUAL selection is one of the most actively studied areas of evolutionary biology(1-3), and ever since Darwin(1) birds have been probably the most popular taxon for testing the predictions about colour variation. Humans have been used to assess 'colour', an approach which may be flawed(4,5) as many birds see in the ultraviolet (to which humans are blind), and have at least four spectral classes of retinal cone cells (humans have only three), Here we report experiments on zebra finches which test the hypothesis that the ultraviolet waveband (300-400 nm) is used in avian mate-choice decisions. We found that the ultraviolet is used, and that it probably contributes to hue perception. This finding may have,vide implications for future studies of avian sexual selection and colour, and supports one hypothesized function of avian ultraviolet vision, the role of which is largely unknown.(4,6,7)

History

Journal

Nature

Volume

380

Issue

6573

Pagination

433 - 435

Publisher

Nature Publishing Group

Location

London, England

ISSN

0028-0836

eISSN

1476-4687

Language

eng

Publication classification

C1.1 Refereed article in a scholarly journal

Copyright notice

1996, Nature Publishing Group

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