Dalton and Sam, two visually challenged spider monkeys, can now see in colour, thanks to human ingenuity and our willingness to experiment with them!
According to the New Scientist:
A human gene injected into the monkeys’ eyes enabled them for the first time to produce Clong-wavelength opsin” – the pigment sensitive to red and green light. “That gave them a retina like that of a normal person with full colour vision,” says Jay Neitz at the University of Washington in Seattle.
In my second novel, Marvellous Hairy, Gargantuan Enterprises takes it a step farther by seeing if they can turn a surrealist novelist INTO a monkey. (Both have full vision.) You can buy it here, listen to it (for free) here and enter a draw to win one of five copies at Goodreads.
And while we’re speaking of spider monkeys and scientific experimentation, you should really check out Monkey See. My review of it is here. Photo by Stefan Willoughby.