Hello all...Sorry for the long delay, but a death in the family stole me from the FML for a while. I opened my mailbox and found more e-mail than I can read in a week, many wondering if I had just evaporated or if my 13 fuzzies had taken control. No and yes. Regarding color vision (again). I have never personally tested any animal for color vision, but the tests are fairly straight forward, and somewhat similar to those given to human subjects in color blindness tests (although not as complex) where the subject is required to distinquish different colors having identical gray tones. Secondly, the internal structure of the eye-the relationship of rods to cones-determines the physical ability of the eye to distinquish color. The ferret eye is rich in rods and very poor in cones (cones are sensitive to bright light and can distinguish different wavelengths of the visible spectrum, while rods are very sensitive to dim light, but lack the ability to distinquish colors [although in some species, rods can distinquish some reds]). The obvious example is like seeing things in black-and-white photos, but a better one would be what you see when you go outside on a dark night. If the light is dim enough, you will not see much color, because the intensity is too low to cause the cones to fire. To increase the chance of a light photon striking a rod, ferrets (as do many night-adapted animals like cats) have a special reflective layer in the eye to bounce photons back up into the rod-layer. This layer makes their eyes seem to glow, and has caused me much frustration when trying to take flash photos of the fast little beasties. No matter how carefully I measure the angles, they have the inborn ability to turn their head at the exact angle to reflect all light directly into the camera lens. They do this exactly one millisecond prior to shutter release. Yes, I can freeze the action, but they all look like devil-ferrets. (I have given up, and retouch the photos later. I cheat.) The bottom line is, between the color comparison studies and the internal structure of the eye, there is little doubt that ferrets are nearly completely colorblind. But so what? One of my prized possessions is a B&W Ansel Adams print, and few color photos can match its beauty. I doubt if ferrets know or even care about color. But if they did consider these types of questions, they would probably feel sorry for us for our inability to distingish the spectrum of odor that they have the ability to "see." Regarding hate mail and Paw Paw/Kelleen. Hang in there, and keep pounding the 'pooter. (Hey Paw Paw, if you said a bad joke, can I say you are a pooter pounder with cheese?) All I can say is, how would you be able to measure the good without the bad for comparison? Its the dues you have to pay to have access to such a fine resource. I learn something from each issue of the FML, so if I have to put up with some "nasty" from time to time, well, its still a good value. I would go so far as to say that it is the diversity of opinion which makes this such a great thang ta read. The one thing I've noticed about ferret owners is that they are all somewhat independent--the choice of a smelly, carpet-digging, litter-box-missing, flesh-biting, anal sac-spraying, evil-eyed near-miss-for-a-rodent supports that thought. Independent people tend to be opinionated..yeah, you know the rest. Just store those messages in the circular file. I resedited a toliet on my mac, and I love flushing (yes, I'm gonna say it) the crap. Hell, I like the both of you. But hey, I'm Bob, and that may not be a good thing.... Well, I finally found something that gets the attention of ALL 13 FERRETS! I was in a mall pet store looking at a minature pinscher, and wondering how it would get along with 13 carpet sharks. But at $400, the wondering was very brief, and I bought a consolation prize instead, which was a white fluffy ball with an attached plastic face. Inside the ball is a high-pitched squeaker. I was squeaking the thing while moving it back and forth, and had a herd of rug rats following my every move. Moose would launch himself at the fuzzyball, making leaps of several feet. Once, while I was playing with Apollo, he came up from behind, leapt off the sofa, and snagged the ball mid-air, about two feet from the ground. Unfortunately, he also snagged my thumb, and hung on tightly to both the ball and the Bob, dangling by his teeth. I quickly lowered him to the floor, and he immediately tried to hide both the ball and the thumb under the sofa. I was not amused. But I was thumb nailed. Bob and the 13 Squeaky Sharks [Posted in FML issue 1456]