Animal color vision evolved 500 million years ago, before vibrant fruits, flowers
A recent study has illuminated the evolutionary journey of color vision in animals, revealing a surprising timeline: animals developed the ability to see colors around 500 million years ago—well before the evolution of bright colors in fruits and flowers.
This discovery reshapes our understanding of how and why color displays emerged, driven initially not by aesthetics but by survival and reproduction.
Led by John J. Wiens at the University of Arizona, the study analyzed the evolution of “conspicuous colors” like red, yellow, and blue in both animals and plants.
The findings show that while color vision in animals predates the appearance of colorful fruits by 150 million years and colorful flowers by nearly 300 million, the widespread use of color displays among animals only began to proliferate around 100 million years ago.
Vision before vibrance
“We wanted to know when bright coloration evolved and what was the purpose of that coloration. That’s largely why we pursued this study,” says co-author Zachary Emberts.
Color vision evolved long before animals began using bright colors for signaling. The research suggests that this delay set the stage for two significant evolutionary uses for color: warning signals and sexual signals.
The earliest use of bright colors in animals served as a warning system, a strategy seen in venomous snakes and poison dart frogs.
According to the study, warning colors appeared approximately 150 million years ago, notably before the emergence of sexual color signals. These warning hues, often serving to deter predators, became widely distributed across the animal kingdom.
“Warning signals are at least five times more widespread. That’s the overall pattern,” Wiens said. They are effective even in species that lack color vision themselves. Predators need to recognize these colors as dangerous, even if the animal displaying them can’t see in color, the study explains.
The rise of sexual signals
Sexual displays, which emerged around 100 million years ago, require advanced color vision in both sexes, a prerequisite for effective courtship signaling. The researchers found that sexual color displays are limited to vertebrates (like fish and birds) and arthropods (such as spiders and insects) because these groups possess the visual acuity needed for color-based communication.
Three primary groups drove the development of these vibrant displays: ray-finned fishes in the ocean, and birds and lizards on land. This explosion of color, especially in sexual signals, may be linked to competition for mates and ecological niches, where color helped animals stand out and attract partners in visually complex environments.
Interestingly, plants later adopted these eye-catching colors in flowers and fruits, with flowers evolving around 200 million years ago. Colorful fruits followed as a strategy to attract animals for seed dispersal, highlighting a functional convergence between plant and animal kingdoms in their use of color.
Despite these discoveries, the reason for the delay between the evolution of color vision and the onset of color signaling in animals remains unclear. The study’s authors suggest that further research could explore what drives the perception of specific colors, such as red or blue, in different species.
“In the future, it would be even more interesting to study what drives the ability of animals to see specific colors like red or blue,” Emberts concludes in the press release.
Source: Interesting Engineering
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Animal color vision evolved 500 million years ago, before vibrant fruits, flowers