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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxt!houxm!vax135!cornell!uw-beaver!tektronix!orca!jans
From: jans@orca.UUCP (Jan Steinman)
Newsgroups: net.pets
Subject: Re: The six senses of a cat
Message-ID: <1808@orca.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 8-Oct-85 13:40:55 EDT
Article-I.D.: orca.1808
Posted: Tue Oct  8 13:40:55 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 12-Oct-85 13:23:24 EDT
References: <160@cadsys.UUCP> <133@codas.UUCP>
Reply-To: jans@orca.UUCP (Jan Steinman)
Organization: Tektronix, Wilsonville OR
Lines: 23
Summary: 

In article <133@codas.UUCP> mikel@codas.UUCP (Mikel Manitius) writes:
>However cats... are known to only see black and white.
>
MYTH!  LIE!!  BLATANT UNTRUTH!!!

This myth has been mentioned several times in this newsgroup, and is wrong!
Cats, while not enjoying the range of color vision humans do, percieve blue,
green and red.  As far as I know, they do not percieve yellow.  If any are
interested, I can try to dig up the vet ref on this subject.

Want to prove it to yourself?  We purchased ping-pong balls for our two cats
to play with.  Some were white, others were "high-visibility" yellow.  Neither
got much activity.  After reading about color perception in cats, we colored
some of them red with felt markers.  These red ones are now their favorite
toys.  (I know, not very scientific, they can probably sniff the felt-pen ink,
the two colors probably have different "gray" levels, etc.)

Its a matter of degree.  Certain varieties of birds that perceive ultra-
violet and infra-red would probably consider humans quite color blind.
-- 
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