Researchers have long known that the mantis shrimp eye contains 12 color receptors, but they had no idea why. Humans and most other animals use three color-receptors to see the spectrum of light.

The mantis shrimp has 16 color-receptive cones in their eyes. Humans have only three. The spectrum of colors we see comes from three base colors: green, blue and red.

Researchers knew the mantis shrimp had some tricked-out peepers—its visual world consists of 11 to 12 basic colors (compared with three for humans) as well as infrared and ultraviolet light.

Is it correct to say there are "colors that we don't have names for", as the butterfly square puts it, or is that just hyperbole? Or are they just ranges of known 'colors', just unseen (and thus ...

But the mantis shrimp color vision is unique. The shrimp assess their environment in the way a scanner captures a photograph — spot a band of color, move the pseudo-pupil row, repeat.

Not all of them punch. Some mantis shrimp are “spearers” that use their claws to stab their prey. One study found that a peacock mantis shrimp's punch can be as fast as 75 miles per hour. Their eyes ...

But mantis shrimp (aka stomatopods) have the most complex eyes of all: they can have between 12 and 16 individual photoreceptors and can thus detect visible, UV, and polarized light.

The mantis shrimp’s combination of color receptors and polarization channels are said to “capture more visual information, using less power and space, than today’s most sophisticated, state ...

Mantis shrimp, often brightly ... Mantis shrimp use UV color spots, chemical cues to size up opponents. ScienceDaily. Retrieved June 2, 2025 from www.sciencedaily.com / releases / 2016 / 08 ...

MEDFORD/SOMERVILLE, Mass. (August 3, 2016) Mantis shrimp, often brightly colored and fiercely aggressive sea creatures with outsized strength, use the ultraviolet reflectance of their color spots ...