Posted: Jun 25, 2014 4:34 pm
[flashback]A late postscript on collosal squid eyes. I mentioned that these eyes solve the invertebrate eye longevity problem by being ultra-sensitive, but what I forgot to mention is how they do that. Basically, it is just a case of "size matters". They are as big as dinner plates, and are the largest in the animal kingdom, AFAIK. Thus, the pupils are also very large, letting in much more of the scarce light than other eyes would, but the detected light is spread over an unusually large number of retinal cells, and this is what limits the photo-oxidative damage rate to any one photoreceptor. [/flashback]