一项在《壹号科学公共图书馆》杂志上的发表的研究表明，鸡比人多了一种视网膜锥(体)，使得它们能够分辨一些人类看不到的颜色。卡伦·霍普金报告。 Bring home a bucket of fried chicken and you may find that people have strong feelings about which part of the bird is best. Well, scientists at Washington University in St. Louis [led by Joseph Corbo] say the answer is: the eyes. At least when you compare them to our own ocular implements. Because chickens can see more colors than we do, findings that appear in the journal Public Library of Science ONE.

The ability to see colors comes from specialized light-sensing cells found in the retina. These cells, called cones, come in different flavors, each of which can detect different wavelengths of light. Humans have three kinds of cones that allow us to see red, green and blue. But birds have an extra cone for seeing violet and ultraviolet light. What’s more, these chicken cones are distributed evenly throughout the retina, enhancing the birds’ ability to see colors all around their visual field.