What Is Known about Aphids Color Perception?
A further complication with the autumn signaling hypothesis is that it is at odds with a large body of literature on herbivorous insects’ visual systems, and their behavioral responses to color signals. More than a century and a quarter ago, Physics Nobel laureate Lord Rayleigh mocked the view that what is bright to human observers should also be bright to insects [2]. Still in the 19th century, the first empirical support for fundamental differences between human and insect vision was found by John Lubbock (later Baron Avebury)—a banker and a member of the British Parliament who expressed regret that his parliamentary duties would sometimes keep him from his entomological research [23]. He introduced bank holidays and discovered that ants perceive UV light [24]. In the next century, studies were conducted on the wavelength sensitivities of insect eyes of dozens of species, including many that feed on leaves, as well as on their behavioral responses to colors [25,26]. At present, it ap
