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Major stages in the evolution of the eye in vertebrates. Many scientists have found the evolution of the eye attractive to study because the eye distinctively exemplifies an analogous organ found in many animal forms. Simple light detection is found in bacteria, single-celled organisms, plants and animals.
Unlike the vertebrate camera eye, the cephalopods' form as invaginations of the body surface (rather than outgrowths of the brain), and consequently the cornea lies over the top of the eye as opposed to being a structural part of the eye. [4] Unlike the vertebrate eye, a cephalopod eye is focused through movement, much like the lens of a camera ...
Cover of Gordon Lynn Walls' magnum opus, 1942 (ed. 1963) In 1942 Walls published The Vertebrate Eye and its Adaptive Radiation a classic on eye physiology and evolution. In this book Walls described a diversity of rod cells and cone cells in the animal world.
While not vertebrate, brief mention is made here of the convergent evolution of vertebrate and Molluscan eyes. The most complex Molluscan eye is the Cephalopod eye which is superficially similar structure and function to a vertebrate eye, including accommodation, while differing in basic ways such as having a two part lens and no cornea.
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For instance, the vertebrate eye (including the human eye) has a blind spot, whereas octopus eyes do not. In those two lineages, the eye was originally constructed one way or the other. Once the vertebrate eye was constructed, there were no intermediate forms that were both adaptive and would have enabled it to evolve without a blind spot.
The hagfish eye lacks a lens, extraocular muscles, and the three motor cranial nerves (III, IV, and VI) found in more complex vertebrates, which is significant to the study of the evolution of more complex eyes. A parietal eye is also absent in extant hagfish.
A newfound fossil of a jawless fish is the oldest known vertebrate cranium preserved in 3D. The 455 million-year-old find could illuminate how vertebrate heads evolved.