Pingelap - the Pacific island of black and white flowers (4 photos)

In addition to humans, color vision can only boast of some higher primates. It is known that women distinguish shades better. compared to the representatives of the stronger half. And the inhabitants of the island Pacific Ocean called Pingelap, which belongs to Micronesia, cannot boast of such an ability.





Monochromatism - the inability to distinguish colors not all, but many (about one in ten) inhabitants of the island, the area which is only 1.8 square kilometers. These people can be called color-blind, because the beauty of the surrounding world in colors is inaccessible to them. In addition to monochromatism, which is nowhere else in such quantity fixed, they can hardly tolerate bright sunlight and see better in twilight than during the day.

Element and mutation



Pingelap

How did it happen that the Pingelaps were deprived of simple joy available to the population of the rest of the world - to see him colorful? The researchers found that in 1775 the island a deadly typhoon hit, almost destroying the islanders. Remaining live two dozen people and became the ancestors of modern residents. Among they had at least one carrier of the mutated gene.





Due to the closeness, remoteness of the island, local religious beliefs and a limited number of residents closely related marriages between them are inevitable. As a result, it is observed in the so-called bottleneck effect. In genetics under This term refers to the reduction in the gene pool of a population due to the passage of a period during which, for various reasons, a critical decrease in its population. The effect is usually seen in case with animals, but island populations of people can also demonstrate.



Achromatopsia - lack of color perception predominantly men. While women are carriers defective gene. Moreover, if the parents are healthy, but are his carriers, then with a probability of 25% their child can be born with achromatopsia.

The visually impaired islanders themselves are satisfied with everything, because they have nothing to compare with, and they do not know another life.