Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Coyote UV Vision


I recently took some absorption/transmission measurements of coyote corneas to see their response to UV light. I wanted to determine whether or not coyotes can see in the UV, making it vital to wash your camouflage garments in a non-FWA detergent. FWA stands for fluorescent whitening agents. They serve as a color brightener and are found in most detergents as well as toilet paper. Under UV light, these phorphorus agents fluoresce in the blue spectral region. Because the FWA's fluoresce in the blue region, I am not sure why it is important that animals can see in the UV, but it is something to note just for science. From the results of the measurements and the plot seen below, it can be said that coyote corneas do not block UV light down to roughly 300nm. While this does not mean that coyotes can see into the UV spectral region, it does indicate that, unlike humans, coyotes do not filter out UV light using their corneas. This leads to the logical conclusion that coyotes may see in the UV since their eye biology does not exclude it using eye biology's natural light filter - the cornea.

1 Comments:

Blogger Unknown said...

12APR2020

Dear Dr. Shawley,
I stumbled across your post, RE: Coyote UV Vision, while I was surfing the web on another topic ,UV wave length). I had been recently been thinking about thinking how I used to wash my hunting clothes in non-UV enhancing detergent, because I had read many, many years ago about how coyotes could see in the UV range. Thank you for reminding me about this important topic.

Separately, a question: Do you think that because of all the heightened interest in coyote calling, that the species has been selectively bred (or weeded) so that the coyotes THAT USED TO COME RUNNING TO A CALL, are all dead, never got to breed and only the SHY (smarter) coyotes got to breed and reproduce?

Also, Do you think bounties work? I do, in Utah where I lived for 18 months, they pay $50/head for coyotes (fawn/deer protection-most counties). The coyotes there are very shy.

I liked your blog.

Sincerely,

Mike Dempsey

Northern , NM miked.roadtrip@gmail.com

4:00 PM  

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