The praying mantis probably can do little more than distinguish light and dark in the evening. The shift in pigments does, however, make it more sensitive to light than it is in the daytime as more ommatidia can detect a given area of light. A demonstration of color vision in honeybees. After a period of feeding from a dish placed on blue cardboard, the bees return to an empty dish on a clean blue card. They are able to distinguish the blue card from others of varying shades of gray.
Some insects are able to distinguish colors.
This requires two or more pigments, each of which absorbs best at a different wavelength . Television camera tubes are also sensitive to ultraviolet, as well as visible light, but their glass lens is opaque to ultraviolet. The sharp contrasts between flowers that appear similar to us partly explains the efficiency with which honeybees secure nectar from only one species of flower at a time even when other species are also in bloom.