Surprising as it may seem, an interesting though occurred to me. Please correct any assumptions that I make which are patently not correct.
The vision of bees has a frequency range not totally dissimilar to that of humans, albeit that range is shifted towards the higher frequency - shorter wavelength - end of the band.
So visible red light is as invisible to bees as infra-red is to ourselves. Bees vision extends into the ultra-violet end of the spectrum and they can make use of polarised light to aid navigation.
Great so far. I understand and accept the concept of the waggle dance as being important phenomena which is slowly revealing more facets as time passes and further research continues.
My question, as there just had to be one, is; "In the pitch dark of the hive, what is the mechanism that allows the audience at these waggle dances to see or receive the message being communicated"?
Does the waggle and movement of the dancer somehow modulate the vibrations and the audience somehow perceive the information that is impressed upon vibrations from the dancer felt as shifts of phase that are encoded by the physical motion of the dance?
Even more complicated than thinking upon it as a visible thing.
I don't suppose that bees have cat's eyes or particularly good low light performance?
