RE: DARWIN'S MACROEVOLUTION: Why Unscientific?
May 13, 2012 at 9:25 pm
(This post was last modified: May 13, 2012 at 9:28 pm by Anomalocaris.)
There are other living examples that illustrate the particular steps in the evolution of a complex eye. Take the pearlie nautilus. It has a complex eye with a pupil, but lacks a lens. So it in effect has a completely evolved optical cup that is fully done folding in on itself, but hasn't yet evolved a lens.
A step back from a complete eye cup is the rim shrimp. As adults they lives on hydrothermal vents on the bottom of the ocean. Normal eyes are useless due to low light levels. So rim shrimp absorbs it's normal crustacean compound eyes as it matures and appears to be totally blind. But detailed study shows it is actually not blind, but instead evolved an amazing eye with effectively infinity aperture for extreme low light sensitivity that consist of an naked external retina on a big flap extending from its segmented carapace. In effect, it evolved a second set of eyes that's built like a normal cup eye, but peel open and laid out flat to achieve maximum light sensitivity at the expense of no resolution.
A step back from a complete eye cup is the rim shrimp. As adults they lives on hydrothermal vents on the bottom of the ocean. Normal eyes are useless due to low light levels. So rim shrimp absorbs it's normal crustacean compound eyes as it matures and appears to be totally blind. But detailed study shows it is actually not blind, but instead evolved an amazing eye with effectively infinity aperture for extreme low light sensitivity that consist of an naked external retina on a big flap extending from its segmented carapace. In effect, it evolved a second set of eyes that's built like a normal cup eye, but peel open and laid out flat to achieve maximum light sensitivity at the expense of no resolution.
