In this issue

Let’s face it, we’re a pretty limited species. Next to the average pet dog we’re olfactorally challenged, we can’t tune into the conversations of whales and bats, and when it comes to light, many species wouldn’t bother opening their eyes for the tiny slice of colour that we see! Of course, as a species, we muddle along quite well without the advantages of seeing further into the spectrum, but we’re missing out on a visual world that many creatures exploit routinely. Until recently, it had been thought that UV vision was restricted to a select band of insects, and that this talent in anything larger was the notable exception rather than the rule. But as Craig Hawryshyn has watched the UV field expand over the last 20 years, the number of vertebrates that can detect UV has increased too. He says that it seems that ‘it was really our own...