Zoology

Dear Hugh – There are a great number of web sites dealing with animal vision, but to avoid confusion, I will only recommend a couple of them. The site http://www.sdnhm.org/kids/eyes/sites.html has links to several web pages on animal vision aimed at younger viewers. The site http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/eyecol.html offers a more detailed look at the underlying principles of vision. It appears quite well done, but may be a bit advanced for younger children. As for elephants, I have been unable to find out whether any experiments designed to test colour perception in elephants ever have been carried out. Most authorities state that in general, elephants have relatively poor eyesight, relying far more on their senses of hearing, smell, and touch for acquiring information about their environment (see http://animal.discovery.com/fansites/jeffcorwin/carnival/massive/asianelephant.h...). My guess is that if they do have any colour perception, it would be quite limited.
Hope this helps, and please continue to be curious about the world around you,
Saugy