Warren began to study dung beetles from 1985. At that time, he was a doctoral student at the Australian National University. He is fascinated by the eyes of animals that can still see things clearly in the dark, whether it is birds that skillfully bypass the Woods in the jungle or fish that look for their spouses in the dim deep sea. So he turned his research direction from optics to the study of animal eyes. The reason why dung beetles win Warren's favor is that the species of scarabs are easy to identify. At the same time, these small insects can fly in different brightness environments. They can fly in bright day and dim dawn or night.

Later, Warren came to Lund University in Sweden and began to study nocturnal insects with his colleague Almat Kelbo. They found that night-time dung beetles have an unusual ability to see many details at night, distinguish many different colors, look for food and mates, avoid predators and avoid hitting obstacles. Inspired by this, Warren and Kelber tried to invent a new night vision system-full color night vision device.