Animals only see in black and white and 5 other color myths
Excerpted from The Universe in 100 Colors: Weird and Wondrous Colors from Science and Nature by Tyler Thrasher and Terry Mudge. September 24, 2024, Sasquatch Books. Published with permission.
Despite color being a ubiquitous aspect of our world, misconceptions about its nature and behavior are equally widespread. A few of these myths are detailed here.
MYTH: THE PRIMARY COLORS ARE RED, YELLOW, AND BLUE
This is often taught in schools, art courses, and paint-mixing diagrams, but it’s not quite accurate in all contexts. In terms of light, the true wielder of color, the primaries are instead red, green, and blue. When it comes to color printing and photography, dyes and inks work through subtractive color mixing, which requires stacking or overlaying color fields of yet another set of primary colors—magenta, cyan, and yellow—to partially absorb light, allowing only some of the visible spectrum to be observed.
MYTH: RAINBOWS CONTAIN EVERY COLOR
A rainbow, or the visible light spectrum, includes a beautiful array of colors, but it does not include all colors categorized and recognized by humans. Pink, brown, and white, for example, are not found in the spectrum because they result from a mix of wavelengths or from complex interactions within our eyes and brain.
Pinks and magentas are perceived when red and blue wavelengths overlap. There are no overlapping colors in a rainbow, and even if there were, red and blue are on opposite sides of the visible spectrum. A lot of overlap would need to occur before blue and red could meet, and at that point it would be a very muddled rainbow. This is the same reason you won’t find true purple in a rainbow. The purplish color and bands we see is due to something called supernumerary rings, which are additional faint bands surrounding a primary or even secondary rainbow. Their light interaction gives the illusion of purple but doesn’t change the fact that purple doesn’t have its own distinct wavelength in the visible spectrum. The closest we get to purple in light is spectral violet, which does have its own wavelength, whereas purple is a range of mixtures between varying ratios of red and blue.
MYTH: BLACK AND WHITE ARE NOT COLORS
This often sparks debate. In terms of light, white is a mixture of all wavelengths of light being perceived simultaneously, and true pitch black is the absence of any light—no color, no visual information. When it comes to pigments, the whiter and paler a color, the more light is being reflected back at the viewer. The darker and blacker a color, the more light is being absorbed by the surface or medium. If any coated object is to possess color, that color is made up of the wavelengths that managed to escape the structure of the coating.
This doesn’t account for the headache-inducing breadth of whites and blacks acknowledged by artists, interior designers, and clothing companies (or anyone with a flannel and an Americano, honestly). If you don’t believe us, stand near a hardware store paint section and watch the next couple argue over whether they want their white cabinets “warm” or “cool.”
Some of these differences are so small that the average observer may not pay any mind, but if you look closely and make time for subtlety, you might find quite a big difference between an inky bluish black, an endless midnight purple, or a dark slate so flat and nonreflective that one could argue it’s just “black in an unlit room.”
MYTH: EVERYONE SEES COLOR IN THE SAME WAY
Perception of color can vary significantly between individuals due to factors like color blindness, age, and even cultural context. It’s incorrect to assume that everyone has the same visual experience, and it often takes quite a bit of comparison to discern that two humans aren’t experiencing the same color/visual phenomenon.
It’s a classic shower thought: How can we prove we’re all seeing the same color? By comparing and contrasting the anatomy of the human eye and finding an average between various samples and how those eyes respond to different lights and colors, we can safely say that there exists an average perception of color outside of color vision deficiencies (CVDs).
CVDs are described as any color vision that doesn’t align with standard trichromatic color vision and are the result of an individual’s cone cells functioning abnormally. CVDs can be genetic or acquired through illness, damage, aging, or chemical exposure.
The differences between CVDs can range from improper functioning of just one of the three cone cells to a total visual absence of color, called achromatopsia. When a single cone is affected, the result could be a visual confusion between blues and greens, yellow and gray, or blues and purples, to name a few.
MYTH: ANIMALS SEE IN BLACK AND WHITE
While it’s true that some animals do not see the range of colors humans do, it’s not accurate to say they see only in black and white. Dogs, for instance, see the world in shades of blue and yellow. Some animals, like mantis shrimp and birds, can perceive a world of color that is completely invisible to humans. Bees and many other insects see wavelengths from 300 nm to 650 nm, meaning they can perceive ultraviolet light.
This difference in perception means our bug friends are visually navigating our gardens in ways we can’t imagine. Flowers with UV-reactive patterning on their petals can act as lights on a runway for bees and can attract insects through stark contrast. Take a yellow dandelion for example. It’s a solid pattern-less yellow flower to humans, but a multicolored and vibrant bullseye for the life-forms that not only rely on the
plant but help further its existence.
MYTH: THE TERMS COLOR, HUE, SHADE, AND TINT ARE INTERCHANGEABLE
There are so many ways we can describe color and color properties. It doesn’t help that there are entire professions that rely on accurately describing color and color concepts either. The existence of these practices adds a complexity to color description that can often be lost on the average person. We clarify the true meaning of each term here.
Hue is the root color, the base on which other components, such as value and saturation, are added. A hue is a pure color and pigment. For instance, a calming teal isn’t a hue, but the hue for teal would belong to the cyan family—in other words very blue. Starting with cyan, additional values come into play to create teal, such as desaturation, light, and shade. The same can be applied for pink, which isn’t a hue but has hues of both magenta and cyan as its root colors. Desaturation and shading come into play to determine what specific form of pink is being used, painted, or printed.
Shade is built upon a hue. It is simply the addition of pure black to a hue or a color that darkens its appearance. The color and its respective category or family remains the same, it’s just darker.
Tint is the opposite of a shade. It is a hue or color in which pure white is added with the goal of lightening its appearance and reflectivity. Pastels are typically considered tints, as they’re lighter and softer versions of hues that usually have lower levels of saturation or intensity.
In between shades and tints exist tones. Tones are hues with the addition of grays. Tones help neutralize and “tone down” the brilliance of a particular hue.
