How they see
How does a mantis shrimp see the world?
Up to 16 receptors — and polarization
The mantis shrimp owns what may be the most elaborate eyes on Earth: up to sixteen classes of photoreceptor to our three, plus the ability to see polarised light. The twist is that it does not see colour any more finely than we do. Rather than blending signals from a few cones the way our brains do, each detector scans a narrow band, which lets the animal recognise colours fast without the heavy mental arithmetic.
See through their eyes
Human ≈ 60 cpd (20/10)
How sharp is a mantis shrimp's vision?
Its eyes resolve about 0.8 cycles per degree (20/750 (est.)), while a human reaches around 60 cpd (20/10). Its field of view spans about 300°.
How does a mantis shrimp see a human?
Its eyes resolve about 0.8 cycles per degree against your 60, so a face has to be roughly 75 times closer for it to pick out the detail you do. Your outline and your movement read clearly; your expression does not.
Colour comparison
How each colour shifts when seen through this animal's eyes, using the same colour model as the app. Tones a screen can't emit (such as ultraviolet) are shown as an approximation.
What colours can a mantis shrimp see?
The most receptor types of any known animal, spanning deep-UV to far-red, plus linear and circular polarization — but colour discrimination is coarse (a scanning, not comparing, system).
Photoreceptors
Up to 12–16 photoreceptor classes + polarization vision
Cone peak sensitivities
- UV set315 nm
- Visible set500 nm
- Long set700 nm
How does a mantis shrimp see in the dark?
Reef-dweller; adapted to bright, shallow water.
How does a mantis shrimp's vision compare to a human's?
You compare signals from three cones to build a million hues. A mantis shrimp carries up to sixteen receptor types, spanning ultraviolet to far-red, and yet, surprisingly, tells similar colours apart more crudely than you can.
What is special about a mantis shrimp's vision?
- Sees UV and circularly polarized light
- Eyes move independently, each with trinocular depth
- Scans colour rather than comparing it
What the research shows
The receptor count comes from taking the retina apart band by band. Cronin & Marshall (1989) reported at least ten spectral types of photoreceptor in a mantis shrimp, and current descriptions list twelve narrow-band classes in the eye's midband, sampling roughly 300–720 nm, each tuned by filters inside the rhabdom. Marshall & Oberwinkler (1999) documented the ultraviolet end of that range, and Chiou et al. (2008) showed that a stomatopod responds to circularly polarised light, not only to linear polarisation. When Thoen, How, Chiou & Marshall (2014) tested how finely the animals tell wavelengths apart, the answer was coarse, roughly 12–25 nm, which they read as a scanning code in which each band is read directly rather than compared with its neighbours.
Spatial detail is estimated from optics, not measured behaviourally. Marshall & Land (1993) put resolution in Gonodactylus chiragra at about 0.8 cpd, and noted that the eye's acute zone enlarges its facets to gather more light rather than to resolve finer detail. The page uses that 0.8 cpd as an estimate, roughly 20/750. The larger limit is colour: twelve spectral channels, ultraviolet down to about 300 nm, and linear plus circular polarisation have no counterpart on a three-primary screen, and a phone camera does not record the ultraviolet or polarisation information in the first place.
Guides: Animals that see ultraviolet · Which animal has the best eyesight? · All guides
Scientific sources
- Cronin & Marshall (1989)
- Thoen, How, Chiou & Marshall (2014)
- Marshall & Land (1993)
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