A review by Kristen and Jeff Gross over at University of Pittsburgh is published in Development today celebrating the diversity of animal eyes and how they get made. Take a look to see what’s cool about jellyfish, lamprey and scallop eyes (among others)!
Shell eyes found in the adult chiton and scallop pallial eyes. (A) Cartoon of the polyplacophoran Acanthopleura granulata. These chiton species have hundreds of aragonite lens-containing eyes embedded in their shells. (B) Cartoon rendering of a magnified view of the chiton shell surface. Sensory pores (aesthetes) are evident in the shell surface. The blue arrow shows a lens-containing eye; the red arrowhead shows non-eye aesthetes. (C) High magnification cartoon rendering of the lens-containing eyes found in Acanthopleura. Figure based on Speiser et al. (2011). (D) Cartoon of a bay scallop with dozens of blue pallial eyes. A single eye is highlighted by a red arrowhead. (E) Cross-section of a single pallial eye. Proximal and distal retina, and corresponding axon tracts, cornea, lens, pigment cell layer and argentea (mirror) are shown. Anatomy based on Dakin (1928), Barber et al. (1967) and McReynolds and Gorman (1970).