Bees See UV

Cheryl Murphy, a columnist for Scientific American, writes, "When I was a kid my sister and I would go hiking on a wooded Adirondack trail behind my grandparents’ camp. The start of the trail was rugged and involved a rigorous uphill climb but the surprise waiting at the top was always a feast for the eyes. It was a clearing in the middle of the forest filled with gorgeous purple and pink wild flowers. I remember trying to scan and study each part of it so as to not miss any of its beauty but despite my efforts to visually devour the scene, there were parts of it that my eyes simply missed. I was limited by what the human eye was built to see and had no idea that there were other hidden messages appearing in nature and the animal kingdom which were 'painted' in wavelengths of the light spectrum that I as a human simply could not see, namely UV. Bees can see ultraviolet wavelengths and as it turns out, flowers have patterns of UV within their petals." Read more.