Can Cats see in color?

Question

can cats see in color? i just got one and i want to know. thxs for yalls help

Answer 1

Cats can see varying shades of blues, blacks, grays, and purples from what I know. They can't see shades of red, though. But anyone who tells you cats only see in black and white and are "color blind", don't know what they're talking about *cough*.

A little proof....

"Cats are not color blind - they have the ability to distinguish between blues and greens, but lack the ability to pick out shades of red. The Natural History Museum of L.A. has online images demonstrating how cats view the world.

Cats, like humans, have two primary structures in the retina of the eye for perceiving light: rods which help us see light and dark areas, and cones which have pigments to detect particular wavelengths of light. At low light intensities, rods function to distinguish light from dark. You may notice that you see little color in dim light. At high intensities of light the rods do not function, however, the cones do. Humans have three kinds of cone pigments, ones that can detect red, green and blue light. It's no coincidence that we find these same colors in the screen of an average color-TV set. The ability of an organism to see in "color" thus depends upon the color receptors present in the retina. People (or animals) lacking a specific color receptor are unable to "see" that color. Most often, it appears greyish, or as one of the other colors that can be detected (i.e. purples appearing greyish-blue). Green color-blindness is the most common genetic form of color-blindness in humans, followed by red, then blue."

(Note; do people even read the other responses before spouting off the WRONG answers and making themselves look like dumbass*s?)

Answer 2

Colors Cats Can See

Answer 3

Can Cats See In Colour

Answer 4

Yes they can, but they don't see colors quite like we do. Their eyes are optimized for low light, so they have more rods (which see in monochrome) and fewer cones (which see in color.)

For years biologists assumed that mammals generally couldn't see color since our earliest mammalian ancestors were pretty much all nocturnal. The assumption was that they couldn't be about in the daytime orf the dinosaurs would get them. Now it's known that early mammals weren't all nocturnal (and some dinosaurs were.)

It seems that every time biologists take a closer look at another mammal's vision they find that it can see more color than they thought. Dogs, for example, were long thought to be without color vision, and we know now that it's not so.

Deer are another example. Back several decades ago, when laws were being considered to require the wearing of "hunter's orange" for safety when when hunting, the biologists said it wouldn't make hunting more difficult because deer couldn't see color. Now we know that they can, and the deer are probably still chuckling about it.

The old belief was that us primates were unique among mammals in having color vision. Now it would be hard to think of a mammal that's known for sure not to be able to see colors.

We learn more all the time. Once upon a time people thought bats were blind, hence the expression "blind as a bat." Now we know that bats have excellent vision. Another myth bites the dust...

Answer 5

It's not quite as simple as yes or no. But if you want a simple answer, the answer is yes.

However, if we compared a cat to humans, the cat would still be considered colorblind. Here's the full story:

Eyes in mammals contain 'rod' and 'cone' receptors. Rod receptors are responsible for night viewing and visual acuity.... cone receptors are used more during the day and help to process color. Cats possess far more rod receptors than cones which explains why cats have exceptional night vision and sense motion very well. They still possess cone receptors for green and red but not as many as humans. As I mentioned, if a human had as few cone receptors as a cat had, that human would be considered to be 'effectively colorblind' which is not the same as being totally colorblind.

In fact, most mammals do see some color but humans and a handful of other mammals are blessed with full color spectrum vision.

Here is an article that explains cat vision in great detail and even has photographs that help you understand the differences.

http://videoforcats.com/catvision.htm


NOTE: What follows is not an answer to the question but a clarification on 3D (aka stereoscopic vision) vision in cats. Yes, cats can see in three dimensions which simply put, is the ability to see not only 2 dimensional shapes, but also distance (depth).

Without 3D vision, cats wouldn't be able to do things like pounce upon prey or jump onto high countertops without doing extraordinarily clumsy things as they wouldn't be able to see depth or distance.

Reading a few of the answers, just feel that lest people become confused, cats have excellent 3D vision but tend to be concentrated in a 'short-range' (meaning that cats tend to be effectively nearsighted). But up close this means that cat's have incredibly accurate vision up close.

I'm not sure what made people believe that cats don't have 3D vision but 3D vision has to do with the positioning of the eyes. Fish for instance have wide angle vision being able to see about 270 degrees all around themselves (exceptional panoramic aka all around vision but see only 2 dimensionally).... Humans and cats have eyes positioned in the same plane which means our eyes have intersecting fields of vision which allows us to process distance.

To illustrate the difference between 2D and 3D vision... close one eye and have someone gently toss a nerf ball at you and you try to catch it. You are now experiencing the world in 2D. Open your eye and have them do the same thing, you are now seeing the world in 3D.

Answer 6

It has something to do with the ratio of cones to rods in the eyes. I was looking for answers here. One sees color and the other is important for acuity of vision. Cats have a different ratio than humans because they are naturally nocturnal hunters and acuity is more important than color in seeing their prey.

Answer 7

A recent study has shown cat's see the colors, blue, green and red.

Answer 8

Yes cats see in color just as you do.

Answer 9

No human is 100% sure, but it is believed that cats can see in certain colors and shades of darker elements: black, gray, blue....It IS a fact though, that cats can only see two dimensional figures, unlike us humans. We can see eachother as rounded shapes - cats cannot. They see us more like the characters of South Park.

Answer 10

all I know is that they see red because I have a red laser and she chases it all the time