Take a look at these spectral sensitivity curves:
This is obviously a sophisticated multi-spectral multicolour detector with a fine sampling of the spectrum, from the ultraviolet at 300nm through to the near-infrared at 700nm
Is this the spectral response of some kind of new CCD or detector? Astronomers, look now with great admiration at that very fine sampling of the spectrum, so very useful for multi-colour photometry, moreover allied with that broad spectral response.
What you are looking at is a graph of the sensitivity curves of the dozen(!!) distinct photoreceptors of the eye of a species of mantis shrimp, a creature that known as Haptosquilla trispinosa.
As we know, Humans generally have only three distinct colour photoreceptors (for red and green and blue light) in the retina of the eye, while most other mammals have only two types of cone cells (blue and green sensitive), but the mammalian colour response is very poor compared to that of this species of mantis shrimp, which encodes its visual response using 12 colours (using 12 distinct photodetectors), from the ultraviolet through to the infrared.
Given the remarkable width of spectral response, and the fine sampling of the spectrum into 12 distinct colours by the eye of this Mantis Shrimp, it would seem that these crustaceans would make the ultimate visual astronomers!
But why does a Mantis Shrimp need to be such a good visual observer that it synthesizes its visual response by using 12 different colour detectors in its eye? Well, conceivably, it all boils down to needing to communicate with other Mantis Shrimps, perhaps for the purposes of mating or defensive hostility, or maybe for other forms of communication.(many Mantis Shrimps are very colourful creatures).
Hmmm....but what do Mantis Shrimps actually talk about, using this very sophisticated colour coding?
Here is a paper that further discusses these issues:
Mantis shrimp.pdf