Everybody knows the story of Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer, but it turns out it could never actually pan out in real life; though not for reasons you might think. University of Exeter researchers have found reindeer lack the color-detecting cells that humans use to see shades of red, orange, and green. In other words “all of the other reindeer” were color blind, and Rudolph was too.
Study leader Professor Martin Stevens adds, “So they wouldn’t be able to see the red of Rudolph’s nose or the orange of carrots. [But] they do have ultraviolet vision, and use this to see lichen hidden in the snow in the arctic.”
