Fig. 1. (A) Template-based representations of the absorbance functions of two classes of cone found in the rat retina. The templates were derived for photopigments having peak absorbances of 359nm and 509nm (Palacios et al., 1996). (B) Relative spectral sensitivities for the two classes of rat cone. To derive relative spectral sensitivity, the absorbance functions at the top were scaled on the sensitivity axis to reflect the relative representation of the two cone types in the rat retina.