Edgar Degas once said, “Art is not what you see, but what you make others see.” Under the sun’s natural light, most Midwestern fish appear dull and ordinary to humans compared to their brightly colored counterparts in the ocean or tropics. But, there may be more than meets our eyes. The naked human eye can only detect light between 400-700 nanometers, making ultraviolet (UV) light (100-400 nm) invisible to us. However, some wildlife have photoreceptors that detect UV rays (usually within the 350-400 nm range). This includes local fish in the Boneyard Creek running through the heart of the University of Illinois campus. My research dives into the diversity of UV color patterns and visual sensitivities for species occurring in the same population and visual environment. As shown in this image of a Blackstripe topminnow under UV and white light, there is much to unearth in the secret world hidden right in front of our eyes. If people have different perspectives on the same painting, imagine the different views our little friends experience from the same scene swimming down the stream. What colors can they truly see? And what/how do they communicate with those private displays of color?