The vertebrate retina first evolved some 500 million years ago in ancestral marine
chordates. Since then, the eyes of different species have been tuned to best support their …

In the course of evolution, animals have obtained the capacity to perceive and encode their
environment via the development of sensory systems such as touch, olfaction, audition, and …

We rely on our visual system to cope with the vast barrage of incoming light patterns and to
extract features from the scene that are relevant to our well-being. The necessary reduction …

Animal colour vision is based on comparing signals from different photoreceptors. It is
generally assumed that processing different spectral types of photoreceptor mainly serves …

One of the most striking features of the vertebrates is that their retinal structures are
remarkably similar, as recognized by Ramon y Cajal over 100 years ago. 1 All vertebrates …

The function of any neural circuit is governed by connectivity of neurons in the circuit and the
computations performed by the neurons. Recent research on retinal function has …

Charles Darwin appreciated the conceptual difficulty in accepting that an organ as wonderful
as the vertebrate eye could have evolved through natural selection. He reasoned that if …

Every aspect of vision, from the opsin proteins to the eyes and the ways that they serve
animal behavior, is incredibly diverse. It is only with an evolutionary perspective that this …

Recent findings shed light on the steps underlying the evolution of vertebrate photoreceptors
and retina. Vertebrate ciliary photoreceptors are not as wholly distinct from invertebrate …

Ten distinct eye designs have been identified in the animal kingdom. Whereas vertebrates
possess only one, invertebrates possess all ten, from simple assemblies of photoreceptors …