title: Frugivory and colour vision in Alouatta seniculus, a trichromatic platyrrhine monkey.
abstract: It is a long-standing hypothesis that primate trichromacy evolved to help fruit-eating primates find fruits amongst leaves. We measured the reflectance spectra of fruits eaten by a trichromatic primate, Alouatta seniculus, in the rainforest of French Guiana, as well as those of the leaves that form the natural background to fruits. We develop a method of specifying these natural colour signals in a chromaticity diagram appropriate for A. seniculus. By treating the task facing frugivorous monkeys as a signal detection task, we show that the spectral tuning of the L and M cone pigments in A. seniculus is optimal for detecting fruits amongst leaves.
authors.affiliation: Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Cambridge, UK. bcr1001@cam.ac.uk
authors.forename: B C
authors.initials: BC
authors.lastname: Regan
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Julliot
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Simmen
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Viénot
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Charles-Dominique
authors.forename: J D
authors.initials: JD
authors.lastname: Mollon
mesh_terms: D000508:Alouatta / Q000502:physiology*; D000818:Animals; D003118:Color Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D005247:Feeding Behavior / Q000502:physiology*; D005638:Fruit; D008433:Mathematics; D017949:Retinal Cone Photoreceptor Cells / Q000502:physiology; D012168:Retinal Pigments; D013053:Spectrophotometry
chemical_list: D012168:Retinal Pigments