How Do Insects See Colors and Can Insects Smell and Hear Sounds Like People Do?

Insects definitely see colors, smell and sometimes hear, but not the way people do.

Our eyes see a we range of wavelengths, but many insects have vision tuned into a specific range to find resources like food and shelter.

For example, because of filters in their eyes, quite a few insects see leaves as yellow, so pest control experts can use color vision to fool foliage-seeking insects into thinking they are landing on foliage when in fact they are landing on a sticky yellow trap.

More than three hundred different odors can lure insects to traps.

Some of these odors can be smelled by humans and some can’t, but most individual lures use such a small amount that a person could not smell it.

Many insects use sound to communicate.

Grasshoppers and crickets, for example, have a tympanum, a body surface that vibrates with sound, rather than a true ear.