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http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2014/141223/ncomms6920/full/ncomms6920.html
'Mineralized rods and cones suggest colour vision in a 300 Myr-old fossil fish'
Management version: This pushes back in time the probable confirmation of the existence color vision.
Interesting point to note: Vertebrates with eyes were on land long before this time. The existence of some type of eye goes back to about 520mya, in marine fossils. So, unless lots of parallel evolution occurred, we should expect rods and cones from earlier terrestrial and marine fossils - given that the phyla with extensive color vision were extant long before 300mya.
The preservation of these kinds eye tissues is rare. Or at least has not been reported all that often. Now that this has been published some other folks might apply these methods on earlier fossils.
Way cool.
'Mineralized rods and cones suggest colour vision in a 300 Myr-old fossil fish'
Management version: This pushes back in time the probable confirmation of the existence color vision.
Interesting point to note: Vertebrates with eyes were on land long before this time. The existence of some type of eye goes back to about 520mya, in marine fossils. So, unless lots of parallel evolution occurred, we should expect rods and cones from earlier terrestrial and marine fossils - given that the phyla with extensive color vision were extant long before 300mya.
The preservation of these kinds eye tissues is rare. Or at least has not been reported all that often. Now that this has been published some other folks might apply these methods on earlier fossils.
Way cool.