Human vision fails to distinguish widespread sexual dichromatism among sexually "monochromatic" birds.

Abstract

Historical scenarios of evolution of avian plumage coloration have been called into question with the discoveries that most birds can see UV light (which normal humans cannot), and that UV-reflecting plumages are widespread in birds. Several examples of sexual dichromatism not detectable with human visual capabilities suggest that our categorizations of plumages as sexually mono- or dichromatic might often be incorrect. Nonetheless, given the limited taxonomic scope of those examples, the vast majority of sexually monochromatic birds are still treated as such without question in avian research. Herein, I show that >90% of 139 species, in a broad sampling of presumed sexually monochromatic passerine birds, were actually sexually dichromatic from an avian visual perspective, based on comparisons of plumage reflectance data using a visual model of color discrimination thresholds. The taxonomic ubiquity of this result suggests that many existing interpretations of evolutionary patterns of sexual dichromatism in birds are erroneous. The visual model used herein provides a method for quantifying sexual dichromatism, revealing that most (58.7%) feather patches sampled lie along a continuum of dichromatism between avian and human discriminatory abilities and could represent unrecognized sexually selected signals. Sexual dichromatism in this study rarely resulted from intersexual differences in UV coloration alone, emphasizing the need for analysis of bird coloration in relation to the full extent of avian visual discriminatory abilities, including, but not limited to, UV-visual capabilities.