Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Figure 18
A fl amboyant cuttlefi sh,
Metasepia pfefferi
, with eyes that produce sharper
images than human eyes.
predators because they take on the color of the surrounding water when seen
from below. But cuttlefi sh can fi nd them, because their eyes are sensitive to
the polarized light that the fi sh refl ect.
The animal in Figure 18 is known as the fl amboyant cuttlefi sh, and its
name is deserved—it blazes in ever-shifting patterns of purple, yellow, and
red as it scans the surface of the bottom for small prey. Its eyes are shielded by
curtain-like membranes that make them appear hooded and sleepy-looking,
but in fact they are keener than our own.
Because of evolutionary convergence, the eyes of the fl amboyant cuttle-
fi sh closely resembles ours. Their eyes, like ours, are camera-like marvels of
evolutionary engineering, with pupils that let in light, irises that can dilate or
contract to control the amount of light that enters, and crystal-clear lenses
that refract the light and form an image on the retina. Like the lenses of our
eyes, their lenses can change shape to focus the images of near and far objects.
This is a big improvement over the awkward cameras that we humans carry
