Monkey Vision

AAAS: “Monkey’s eye view.” Many primates including humans have trichromatic vision. This is accomplished by having an image projected onto the retina initially captured by 3 cone types with sensitivities at different wavelengths. The fovea is where we have central vision, used to focus on a word in a sentence, + an area vulnerable to macular degeneration in humans. Cone cells in the retina detect color, while rod cells allow us to have nightime or low light vision in black + white. “Kim et al. used connectomic reconstruction methods to compare cone circuits in both human and monkey foveal retinas.” The researchers found a distinctive circuit in the human retina absent in the marmoset model. This indicates early-stage chromatic signals in the primate visual system are species-specific. “Therefore, monkey retinal circuitry does not provide a complete model for human color vision.” But I’ve gotta say, unless this critte is using tinted contacts, that is an extraordinary eye color, reminiscent of the color of amber. #vision #retina #evolution