Skip Navigation


Integrative and Comparative Biology Advance Access originally published online on September 18, 2007
Integrative and Comparative Biology 2007 47(6):808-814; doi:10.1093/icb/icm092
This Article
Right arrow Full Text Freely available
Right arrow FREE Full Text (PDF) Freely available
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
47/6/808    most recent
icm092v1
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrow Request Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Sweeney, A. M.
Right arrow Articles by Johnsen, S.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

© The Author 2007. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology. All rights reserved. For permissions please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org.

Comparative visual acuity of coleoid cephalopods

Alison M. Sweeney1,*, Steven H. D. Haddock{dagger} and Sönke Johnsen*
*Biology Department, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA; {dagger}Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institution, Moss Landing, CA, USA

Correspondence: 1E-mail: ams27{at}duke.edu

The pelagic realm of the ocean is characterized by extremely clear water and a lack of surfaces. Adaptations to the visual ecology of this environment include transparency, fluorescence, bioluminescence, and deep red or black pigmentation. While the signals that pelagic organisms send are increasingly well-understood, the optical capabilities of their viewers, especially for predators with camera-like vision such as fish and squid, are almost unknown. Aquatic camera-like vision is characterized by a spherical lens focusing an image on the retina. Here, we measured the resolving power of the lenses of eight species of pelagic cephalopods to obtain an approximation of their visual capabilities. We did this by focusing a standard resolution target through dissected lenses and calculating their modulation transfer functions. The modulation transfer function (MTF) is the single most complete expression of the resolving capabilities of a lens. Since the optical and retinal capabilities of an eye are generally well-matched, we considered our measurements of cephalopod lens MTF to be a good proxy for their visual capabilities in vivo. In general, squid have optical capabilities comparable to other organisms generally assumed to have good vision, such as fish and birds. Surprisingly, the optical capability of the eye of Vampyroteuthis infernalis rivals that of humans.

From the symposium "Integrative Biology of Pelagic Invertebrates" presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology, January 3–7, 2007, at Phoenix, Arizona.


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?


This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
 J VisHome page
S. Zylinski, D. Osorio, and A. J. Shohet
Edge detection and texture classification by cuttlefish
J Vis, December 1, 2009; 9(13): 13 - 13.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]


Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.