A researcher has found that the rapid detection of snakes by monkeys is because of the presence of snake scales as a visual cue. His findings highlight an evolutionary adaptation of primates to identify snakes based on specific visual features.
Understanding these mechanisms provides insight into the evolution of visual processing related to threat detection.
Kawai's first experiment demonstrated that monkeys exhibited an immediate response to images of snakes but not to images of salamanders, implying a specific fear of snakes. On the basis of this observation, he wondered what would happen if he edited the images of the salamanders to have snakeskin without changing anything else.
However, when Kawai showed the edited images of salamanders with snakeskin to monkeys, they reacted to the altered images of the harmless creature equally fast, or even faster, than to the snake. "This may be because during evolution our primate ancestors evolved a visual system to identify scales, which are characteristic of snakes," he continued."These insights into primate evolution will likely improve our understanding of vision and brain evolution in animals, including ourselves."By studying the visual system of an octopus, researchers hope to understand how its brain organization compares to that of humans and other vertebrates.
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