Why do primates have good eyesight?

[Evo]

No, no, no.

A friend sent this to me and it's just wrong. For one thing, it says dogs can't do brain surgery. Sorry, but my dog aka The Fruitbat" has been performing brain surgery on the cats for two years. He almost killed Dr Foofer. He drills holes in the sides of their heads, but I digress.

Surely there are more practical reasons for primates to have developed good eyesight than a fear of snakes.

Any thoughts?

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/03/opinion/03isbell.html

 

[tribdog]

I'm going to wear my glasses if I'm going to be around any poisonous snakes. I can't think of a better reason to be able to see well. So maybe there's something to this. Personally I don't think it's correct, I think primates got improved sight so they could take advantage of internet porn.

 

[Moonbear]

I'm going to wear my glasses if I'm going to be around any poisonous snakes. I can't think of a better reason to be able to see well. So maybe there's something to this. Personally I don't think it's correct, I think primates got improved sight so they could take advantage of internet porn.

Funny, I thought that's why you needed the glasses.

 

[tribdog]

well, yeah, but I'm not a primate, I'm a primnine, baby, want to monkey around?

 

[Moonbear]

Some things never change. Welcome back!

 

[Hurkyl]

Neither ate nor nine are prime.

 

[tribdog]

Neither ate nor nine are prime.

add them together

 

[zoobyshoe]

That article is completely demented. Primates developed better eyesight in order to tell good brush from inferior brush.

 

[turbo]

Just a thought - if your band of primates is going to spend a good deal of its time in trees (and avoid climbing all the way down one tree to get to the good fruit, etc in another), you're going to find ways to leap from one tree to another. Natural selection will favor the primates with the best vision, and with the best depth perception (implying steroscopic vision). While many animals can benefit from having their eyes mounted in such a way as to provide the widest field of vision (like most grazing animals), the most successful tree-dwellers would have front-mounted eyes working together, and the successful groups would be those that developed cooperative means of detecting predators and alerting one another of danger to compensate for the poorer peripheral vision of the individuals.

 

[Schrodinger's Dog]

I'm confused what was wrong with the original theory about tree dwelling and insectivorous lifestyles, that you need to suddenly implant some IMO non corelatory nonsense in there to explain vision. I'd imagine the sort of co-operative hunting that Chimpanzees indulge in is much easier with good vision too, for me all the things that give us good eyesight can already be explained by a primates environment, lifestyle and dietry requirements.