Can corns see red anything?

[Cam5]

Our son, and myself, were wondering if cornsnakes can see anything red?
We read that the red light does not mess up their sleep wake cycle because they cannot see it.
Does this only hold true for light or other objects (ie shirts, chairs etc) as well?

Thank you for our time.

 

[tanner123]

don't hold me to this but im pretty sure that its only the light that they dont see

 

[Cam5]

I won't hold you to it...but I will take your word for it.
Our son is very careful to not wear red because he does not want his snake to be scared that his body is missing

 

[SnakesRule1234]

Are you serious?

 

[desertanimal]

That is adorable.

I seriously doubt snakes are trichromats--which means they have three different alleles that produce three different types of cones that allow us to see red, blue, and green. Take a picture of your son wearing a red shirt using the black and white setting, or change the pic to black and white in photoshop and show him that this is what the snake sees when he wears a red shirt.

I don't know much about vision in snakes, but I do know a little about vision because some primates (like us) are very rare in the mammalian world in being trichromats, and being able to distinguish reds from greens. In some primates, only the females are trichromats, not males. There are some human females (about 15-20%) who are even tetrachromats, which means they have two slightly different kinds of red-seeing cones, and can distinguish more red in the spectrum than the rest of us. Those are the people who call something is purple when it looks blue to you. Only women can be tetrachromats, though, because the Y chromosome doesn't carry as many color alleles as the X. Maybe next week I'll look into it more, because it's something I find really interesting, but I don't have time this week.

 

[Cam5]

Desert Animal....wow! :bowdown:
thank you!
Great information and great suggestion to change the picture to show our son. He had the vision that it would appear to his snake that nothing was there at all, like the invisible man

Our son has drawn his snake several pictures and never uses red

Maybe we could try a little experiment to see which drawings his snake prefers

Now that i know the technical terms I can do some betgter research.

 

[Cam5]

Are you serious?

If you are asking if I am serious about our son not wearing red...yes.
He has had his snake since he was 4 years old and he is only 7 years old now(the snake was a hatchling when we brought him home). The snake is very important to our son and he does everything "by the book" and wants to do everything he can to make his snake healthy and happy...including choosing the proper clothing

 

[tanner123]

lol thats adorable

 

[Cam5]

Our 7 year old is hysterical that way. He is very analytical with everything he does...but he has a wicked sense of humor as well :grin01:

He was actually the first one on the family to have a pet. Looking back now a 4 year old havong a snake for a pet seems a bit absurd; but from the moment he held that snake they both were very comfortable with each other...and here we are It is neat too that although our son struggles with stuttering he never stutters when he is holding or talking to his snake "Stretchy".

My husband has horrid allergies to furry animals...so I always remind our boys that if it wasn't for Dad's allergies they would have been "stuck" with a dog like their friends. Of course they are appalled by the idea of not having a reptile as a pet...our oldest has a Rankin Beardie and our youngest has a fat tailed gecko....and this may I got to pick out a couple Crested geckos...

Thanks again for your help...He was VERY excited to help write the question and read the replies :crazy02:

 

[Paradox]

IMHO, even if the snakes did indeed have no capacity to see red (Which I don't believe is true, I'm with the posters above on this), the probability of your Son's shirts being a perfect red are, to all intents and purposes, 0. Hence, it would have other colours in it, so would still be visible to the snake anyway.

 

[Cam5]

Good point Paradox. So either way he is not going to be the "Invisible Torso Boy" and scare his snake :cheers:

 

[Eremita]

(...)
I don't know much about vision in snakes, but I do know a little about vision because some primates (like us) are very rare in the mammalian world in being trichromats, and being able to distinguish reds from greens. In some primates, only the females are trichromats, not males. There are some human females (about 15-20%) who are even tetrachromats, which means they have two slightly different kinds of red-seeing cones, and can distinguish more red in the spectrum than the rest of us. Those are the people who call something is purple when it looks blue to you. Only women can be tetrachromats, though, because the Y chromosome doesn't carry as many color alleles as the X. Maybe next week I'll look into it more, because it's something I find really interesting, but I don't have time this week.

Apparently the relative location of the two red cones affects the influence that the extra cone provides. As far as I know, the jury is still out on what percentage of tetrachromats actually see all those potential extra colors.

When I first read about that, it really hit home the extent to which the world is effectively a personal construction. Even your programs with 24 bits per channel cannot represent all colors to all people. (And, Lord knows how much we can see in dreams.)

-Sean

 

[Cam5]

Very interesting information.
You hit the nail on the head with your comparison as well :wavey: