Which retinal cells distinguish colors in daylight?

• A. Rods
• B. Cones
• C. Ganglion cells
• D. Bipolar cells

Answer: (B)

Cones are the retinal cells that distinguish colors in daylight. They come in different types tuned to various wavelengths (roughly blue, green, and red), and the brain compares the signals from these cones to create color perception. In bright light, cones are active and give sharp color vision and good detail. Rods, on the other hand, are highly sensitive in dim light but do not provide color information and tend to saturate in daylight, so they don’t contribute to color discrimination. The other retinal neurons, bipolar and ganglion cells, mainly relay and process signals from photoreceptors to the brain; they don’t themselves encode color, but they transmit the color information detected by the cones.