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Spookfish Uses Mirrors For Eyes

Posted by timothy on from the still-working-on-the-trenchcoat dept.

Kligat writes "The brownsnout spookfish in the Pacific is the first known vertebrate to use mirrors to focus light into its eyes. Despite being a species known for 120 years, this was not known until a live specimen was caught between New Zealand and Samoa last year. The fish lives over 1,000 meters below the ocean's surface, so the light focused by the mirrors' perfectly curved surfaces provides a major advantage over other fish."

4 of 81 comments (clear)

  1. Lenses? by tsa · · Score: 2, Insightful

    If it uses mirrors to focus light in its eyes it doesn't need lenses. And the use of mirrors means no chromatic abberation, which means a sharper image! What a smart 'design.' The things Nature comes up with never cease to amaze me.

    --

    -- Cheers!

  2. Re:That's Spooky! by mr_mischief · · Score: 3, Insightful

    There's an old saying that fish rot from the head first. Perhaps no dead specimens have been found with the eyes intact, and they've not yet cut the live specimen up to test the eyes.

  3. Re:So, what's the current count of times eyes evol by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Missing option: zero.

  4. Irreducible Complexity is Easy by Petersko · · Score: 2, Insightful

    In order to determine something to be irreducibly complex, all one has to do is find an evaluator with absolutely no analytical ability or imagination.

    Thankfully, those people are everywhere.