The eyes have it – incredible ways of seeing the world | Not Exactly Rocket Science

The eyes have it – incredible ways of seeing the world

April 27th, 2011 by Ed Yong in Animal behaviour, Animal senses, Animals, Evolution, Eye evolution, Select | 12 comments | RSS feed | Trackback >

12 Responses to “The eyes have it – incredible ways of seeing the world”

1. Lee Zimmerman Says:
April 27th, 2011 at 6:58 pm

Here are some others for your collection. Eagles have visual pits which act like binoculars. Cheetahs don’t have foveas, instead they have a foveal streak, probably designed to see most acutely along a plane. Most birds seem to have more discerning color vision than we do – instead of three distinct spectrally sensitive cones they have four or more. Pit vipers have infrared sensing organs that are spatially structured like a second pair of eyes.

Even more amazing than the fact that we can see is that nature seems to have found many different ways of doing it.
2. Edward Says:
April 27th, 2011 at 7:20 pm

And one more: “The barreleye (Macropinna microstoma) has extremely light-sensitive eyes that can rotate within a transparent, fluid-filled shield on its head…” http://lpb.fieldofscience.com/2009/02/barreleye-fish-macropinna-microstoma.html
3. Arwen from the Chameleon's Tongue Says:
April 28th, 2011 at 12:32 am

Looks like aquatic creatures are winning the competition for having the weirdest eyes. Fancy chiton even having eyes – they look so primitive.
4. jamie Says:
April 28th, 2011 at 5:52 pm

So, would the brownsnout spookifish eyes be the first example of a Newtoniam reflector used by animals? No mention of trilobite eyes?
5. mckinnley Says:
April 29th, 2011 at 1:58 pm

So is there a specific scientific reasoning as 2 why certain col
6. amphiox Says:
April 29th, 2011 at 6:11 pm

Looks like aquatic creatures are winning the competition for having the weirdest eyes. Fancy chiton even having eyes – they look so primitive.

That’s most likely just an artifact of the fact the things have been living in aquatic environments for much longer than terrestrial ones. (And many of the terrestrial lineages already had fairly advanced eyes at the point in the time when they first colonized the land….)
7. Matt B. Says:
April 29th, 2011 at 6:40 pm

Don’t forget the fish with internal eyes and a transparent head.

When the mantis shrimps acheive sentience and high technology, they’re going to have a hell of a time creating realistic movies.
8. Noumenon Says:
April 30th, 2011 at 10:34 am

This seems to be the thread where this comment should have gone, the other one is empty.

In the animal kingdom, eyes have evolved dozens of times.

This kind of took me aback. Are eyes especially notable for this? I don’t think you’d say livers or lungs have evolved dozens of times. Do you mean that eyes evolved in multiple eyeless animals, or just that evolution produced multiple different kinds of eyes?
9. Noumenon Says:
May 1st, 2011 at 1:57 am

Is there anything else you would say evolved “dozens of times”? I only see a couple different kinds of wings, a couple different kinds of teeth, et cetera. Venom is something I could say evolved many times.
10. Ed Yong Says:
May 1st, 2011 at 4:21 pm

“Do you mean that eyes evolved in multiple eyeless animals, or just that evolution produced multiple different kinds of eyes?”

Both.

“Is there anything else you would say evolved “dozens of times”?”

Yep, venom is a good example. Also asexuality, bioluminescence, armour, sociality, flightlessness, gliding…
11. dave chamberlin Says:
May 5th, 2011 at 4:07 pm

There is a science book out called ‘In the blink of an eye; how vision kick started the big bang of evolution” by Andrew Parker. He argues that vision happened precisely 543 million years ago and kick started the Cambrian Explosion. I don’t buy his hypothesis, for one thing if vision evolved dozens of times it is damned unlikely it all happened at the same time. Ed Yong have you read this this book, or started it and decided you had better things to do.
12. Ed Yong Says:
May 6th, 2011 at 9:29 am

Parker’s hypothesis doesn’t suggest that all eyes evolved at the same time; rather, it suggests that the first eyes (and really, the first image-forming eyes) triggered a runaway evolutionary arms race between predator and prey. So the repeated evolution of vision doesn’t disprove his idea. That being said, I don’t buy it. Parker’s explanation always struck me as being a bit human-centric. It makes too much of the importance of vision and downplays the importance of other senses, which can provide substantial amounts of information over longer distances.

Parker’s latest book also suggests that the stories of the Book of Genesis are surprisingly accurate and accord with science, which doesn’t really instil confidence in the rest of his ideas.