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Biologist D.E. Nilsson has independently theorized about four general stages in the evolution of a vertebrate eye from a patch of photoreceptors. [5] Nilsson and S. Pelger estimated in a classic paper that only a few hundred thousand generations are needed to evolve a complex eye in vertebrates. [6]
The evolution of color vision in primates is highly unusual compared to most eutherian mammals. A remote vertebrate ancestor of primates possessed tetrachromacy, [1] but nocturnal, warm-blooded, mammalian ancestors lost two of four cones in the retina at the time of dinosaurs.
A majority of paleontologists use the term "tetrapod" to refer to all vertebrates with four limbs and distinct digits (fingers and toes), as well as legless vertebrates with limbed ancestors. [ 15 ] [ 16 ] Limbs and digits are major apomorphies (newly evolved traits) which define tetrapods, though they are far from the only skeletal or ...
The eye is essentially a derivative of the ectoderm from the somatic ectoderm and neural tube, with a succession of inductions by the chordamesoderm. Chordamesoderm induces the anterior portion of the neural tube to form the precursors of the synapomorphic tripartite brain of vertebrates, and it will form a bulge called the diencephalon.
In the book vertebrate evolution is studied utilizing comparative anatomy & functional morphology of existing vertebrates, and fossil records. The book is considered a classic and has been used very frequently as a college-level or university introductory level text on the subjects of basic paleontology and vertebrate evolution. [2]
Eyes are simple eyespots, not lensed eyes that can resolve images. Hagfish have no true fins and have six or eight barbels around the mouth and a single nostril. Instead of vertically articulating jaws like Gnathostomata ( vertebrates with jaws), they have a pair of horizontally moving structures with tooth-like projections for pulling off food.
The heads of vertebrates are complex structures, with distinct sense organs for sight, olfaction, and hearing, [12] and a large, multi-lobed brain protected by a skull of bone or cartilage. [13] Cephalochordates like the lancelet ( Amphioxus ), a small fishlike animal with very little cephalization, are closely related to vertebrates but do not ...
Responsible for this process in mammals is the visual sensory system, the foundations of which were formed at an early stage in the evolution of chordates. Its peripheral part is formed by the eyes , the intermediate (by the transmission of nerve impulses ) - the optic nerves , and the central - the visual centers in the cerebral cortex .