We think the first creature with vision appeared in nature around 500 million years ago. But we still don’t know precisely why and how it evolved to the different types of eyes that exist in nature today.
Charles Darwin found the complexity of the eye baffling. According to his Theory of Evolution, species evolve through minor, incremental adaptations driven by natural selection. He struggled to grasp the concept of a partially evolved eye, which seemed counterintuitive. While originally, the amount of diversity of eye types that exist in nature led scientists to think they may have evolved independently multiple times throughout history, we currently believe is more likely that all vision came from an early vision that could detect light from dark.
The amount of vision diversity in nature is stunning, each with unique adaptations to specific environments. Some animals, like bats and dolphins, use sound to augment their poor natural vision, while others, like snakes, supplement vision with heat detection. There are also animals with incredible vision, like the hawk's incredible precision at long distances, or the deep-sea mantis shrimp who can perceive 12 channels of color compared to Humans’ only three.
Eyes are genuinely magnificent structures and stand as a testament to the grandeur of evolution. This enigmatic organ, through countless iterations, has endowed countless species with the ability to perceive and navigate their world, including our won.
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