By Isobel Williams via SWNS
A new video camera can show what life looks like through an animal’s eyes.
The camera system allows filmmakers to replicate the colors that different animals see with over 92 percent accuracy.
This reconstruction of animal’s sight can help scientists better understand how they communicate and navigate the world around them.
The new method is a huge improvement from traditional methods such as spectrophotometry which is often time-consuming, requires specific lighting conditions, and cannot capture moving images.
The researchers, led by the University of Sussex, were inspired by these limitations when they developed their novel camera and software system that captures animal-view videos.
The camera works by simultaneously recording video in four color channels: blue, green, red and UV.
This is then used to produce an accurate video of how those colors are perceived by animals, based on existing knowledge of the photoreceptors in their eyes.
The camera was built using a mixture of commercially available cameras and 3D-printed casing.
The study, published in PLOS Biology, reports that the software used is open-source, allowing other researchers to access and build on this technology in the future.
Assistant professor Daniel Hanley, from George Mason University, Virginia, said: “We’ve long been fascinated by how animals see the world.
“Modern techniques in sensory ecology allow us to infer how static scenes might appear to an animal; however, animals often make crucial decisions on moving targets, for example detecting food items or evaluating a potential mate’s display.
“Here, we introduce hardware and software tools for ecologists and filmmakers that can capture and display animal-perceived colors in motion.”
