Vision in fishes

Vision is an important sensory system for most species of fish. Fish eyes are similar to the eyes of terrestrial vertebrates like birds and mammals, but have a more spherical lens. Birds and mammals (including humans) normally adjust focus by changing the shape of their lens, but fish normally adjust focus by moving the lens closer to or further from the retina. Fish retinas generally have both rod cells and cone cells (for scotopic and photopic vision), and most species have colour vision. Some fish can see ultraviolet and some are sensitive to polarized light.

Among jawless fish, the lamprey has well-developed eyes, while the hagfish has only primitive eyespots. The ancestors of modern hagfish, thought to be the protovertebrate were evidently pushed to very deep, dark waters, where they were less vulnerable to sighted predators, and where it is advantageous to have a convex eye-spot, which gathers more light than a flat or concave one. Fish vision shows evolutionary adaptation to their visual environment, for example deep sea fish have eyes suited to the dark environment.

Fish and other aquatic animals live in a different light environment than terrestrial species. Water absorbs light so that with increasing depth the amount of light available decreases quickly. The optical properties of water also lead to different wavelengths of light being absorbed to different degrees. For example, visible light of long wavelengths (e.g. red, orange) is absorbed quicker than light of shorter wavelengths (green, blue). Ultraviolet light (even shorter wavelength than violet) is absorbed quicker yet. Besides these universal qualities of water, different bodies of water may absorb light of different wavelengths due to varying salt and/or chemical presence in the water.

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