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300 Million Year Old Fossil Fish Likely Had Color Vision

Posted by samzenpus on from the all-the-better-to-see-it-with dept.

westlake writes Nature is reporting the discovery of mineralized rods and cones in a 300-million-year-old fossil fish found in Kansas. The soft tissues of the eye and brain decay rapidly after death, within 64 days and 11 days, respectively, and are almost never preserved in the fossil record — making this the first discovery of fossil rods and cones in general and the first evidence for color vision in a fossilized vertebrate eye.

7 of 37 comments (clear)

  1. Re:That's all well and good.. by Urkki · · Score: 3, Interesting

    ...but was it 4K?

    Well, I don't know about that, but at least it was better than Oculus Rift, if images in TFA are anything to go by. Something like semi-spherical 320 by 240 degrees with 3D zone of maybe 120 by 240 degrees in the middle, or thereabouts.

    Also, it's not just the vision, the display system goes with lateral twin ultra low bass audio arrays, capable of generating fully spherical acoustic environment awareness experience.

  2. Re:That's all well and good.. by AK+Marc · · Score: 4, Funny

    Better than that, it was retina.

    --
    Learn to love Alaska
  3. the real mystery (to me) by frovingslosh · · Score: 3, Interesting

    OK, early fish could see in colors. And clearly modern birds (and their dino ancestors) can see in color. There is strong observal evidence that amphibians can see in color too. So just how is it that virtually all mammals supposedly lost the ability to see in color (which itself is hard for me to buy) and yet then the apes evolved the ability to see in color again and they did it with the same rod and code mechanism that was used in the primitive fish. I'm hard pressed to believe that there is an advantage for colorblindness that would have been selected for in the earliest mammals.

    --
    I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
    1. Re:the real mystery (to me) by careysub · · Score: 5, Informative

      ... I'm hard pressed to believe that there is an advantage for colorblindness that would have been selected for in the earliest mammals.

      There didn't have to be an advantage for partial colorblindness (they were never totally colorblind), there just doesn't have to be any penalty for the trait to be lost. Same with the inability of some mammals to synthesize vitamin C, no particular advantage to losing it, but with a vitamin C rich diet there was no penalty either and so it could get lost over time. Color vision only works in bright light. Mammals spent a lot of their early evolutionary history as nocturnal creatures, and so could lose this trait without penalty. In fact it appears there were multiple function S cone loss events in the mammalian line, not just one (genomics gives us powerful insights into this today). The article does point out though that "the fact that these gene mutations have spread throughout the populations allows the possibility that the loss of S cones may in some way enhance visual fitness". It is entirely possible that processing of images in dim light could be better optimized through evolution with the loss of the unneeded bright-light color vision baggage.

      --
      Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
    2. Re:the real mystery (to me) by jbengt · · Score: 3, Informative

      Most mammals can see color. They (except some primates) are colorblind in the sense that they can't tell the difference between red and green, but they can tell the difference between red and blue. Because of the similarites in the proteins expressed, it is believed that human ancestors inherited a mutated gene for red that had a peak receptivity at green together with the original red gene from another parent. That's why most people now have both red and green cones.

  4. Re:sorry the dates are wrong .... by Bite+The+Pillow · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The first person to moderate usually sets the tone, and later mods use less critical thinking.

    To offset, it would have to be worthy of one mod point. As this reply is predictable, it seems unworthy especially on a low comment count article.

    As a troll post, this does state an insincerely held belief solely to get a response. You expected funny perhaps, but troll mod is therefore not totally inappropriate.

    Understanding primacy and anchoring doesn't undo moderation, so just enjoy that anyone bothered to reply.

  5. Slow down, cowboy. by westlake · · Score: 3, Insightful

    OK, early fish could see in colors. And clearly modern birds (and their dino ancestors) can see in color

    The mineralized rods and cones in this fossil fish are the first to be found in any vertebrate fossil. The argument for color vision in dinosaurs is more or less based on the theory that if a sexually attractive feather-like structure was colored, a dino must have seen it in color.