Frugivory and colour vision in Alouatta seniculus, a trichromatic platyrrhine monkey.
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.
Regan
B C
BC
Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Cambridge, UK. bcr1001@cam.ac.uk
Julliot
C
C
Simmen
B
B
Viénot
F
F
Charles-Dominique
P
P
Mollon
J D
JD
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
D012168:Retinal Pigments