From time immemorial, magical abilities have been attributed to representatives of the feline family. At different times they were either worshiped as gods, or accused of being connected with the devil. Their whole life was shrouded in mystery and mysticism. It's all because of the amazing feline abilities, and science cannot explain some of them to this day.
They can fall from a great height and, as if nothing had happened, run away after that on their paws, for hundreds of kilometers to find their way home and see what is inaccessible to people. Many cat owners have often observed their strange behavior. For example, a cat may be scared by something when there is no threat visible to the human eye.
And now biologists Ron Douglas of the City University of London and Glen Jeffrey of University College London (UCL) seem to have unraveled one of the mysteries of many mammals' behavior, namely their ultraviolet vision.
The human eye cannot perceive radiation in the UV range (less than 400 nm), because most of it is retained by the lens. And therefore, a person is not able to see special patterns on flowers that are open to insects, or traces of urine that rodents leave.
Susceptibility to UV radiation is very common among animals, for example, in birds, bees, butterflies, deep-sea crabs and others. However, it was previously thought to be rare in mammals. This list includes some mice, rats, moles, marsupials, and bats. All these animals have UV-sensitive visual pigment on their retinas.
Scientists wanted to figure out how things are in other mammals. To do this, they asked to send them dead animals from zoos, shelters and veterinary clinics. As a result, they received a wide variety of eyes at their disposal, namely from 38 species from 25 families.
Scientists have examined all of these visual organs and, in particular, the lenses for the ability to transmit light of different wavelengths. It turned out that many animals do not have an internal UV filter. Among them are cats, dogs, okapis, ferrets and hedgehogs. This means that all of them, unlike humans, must perceive this part of the light spectrum.
Scientists now need to find out to what extent and what species of mammals are able to see UV radiation, as well as what inventions of nature, in addition to a specific visual pigment, help them in this.
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Who knows, maybe soon someone will learn to better understand their beloved cat, or be convinced that she has completely lost her mind.