• Question: do dogs really see in black and white

    Asked by 07creagand to Alastair, Emma, Hywel, Keith, Vicki on 16 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Hywel Vaughan

      Hywel Vaughan answered on 16 Jun 2010:

      Dogs have dichromatic eyes – they only see in red and blue, whereas we have trichromatic eyes – we see in red, blue and green. Humans have 7 times as many cone cells as dogs, so we see colours much more vividly than they do too… their colours would be much paler!

    • Photo: Alastair Sloan

      Alastair Sloan answered on 16 Jun 2010:

      Hi

      Actually, although most people say dogs only see in black and white its not true. They see in colour. We know this because when we look at the cells in the eyes of dogs they have rods and cones like humans and it is the cones which allow us to see colour.

      But, dogs are colour blind – red/green colour blind! We know this because the cones in humans are linked to nerves which react to light of three wavelengths where in dogs the nerves only react to 2 wavelengths. So dogs see in colour but are colour blind

    • Photo: Keith Brain

      Keith Brain answered on 16 Jun 2010:

      Not quite – they have rods and (as I understand) 2 types of cones (the rods and cones are the light-sensitive cells at the back of the eyes). So, they can see difference in brightness with their rods (meaning that they can see in greyscale!), but with the 2 different types of cones they can tell some colours apart.

    • Photo: Vicki Stevenson

      Vicki Stevenson answered on 16 Jun 2010:

      dogs can see a bit of colour, but not in the same detail as most humans do. In particular they can’t distinguish red and green, but they’re better with blue.

Comments