ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2017
Structure and function of a compound eye, more than half a billion years old.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers.
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Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed.
- Pygmaclypeatus daziensis, a unique lower Cambrian arthropod with two different compound eye systems.Communications biology · 2025Article
- Comparative transcriptomic analysis primarily explores the molecular mechanism of compound eye formation in Neocaridina denticulata sinensis.BMC genomics · 2024Article
- The median eyes of trilobites.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- A Non-Gradual Development Process of Cicada Eyes at the End of the Fifth-Instar Nymphal Stage to Obtain Visual Ability.Insects · 2022Article
- Create Machine Vision Inspired by Eagle Eye.Research (Washington, D.C.) · 2022Review
- Semper's cells in the insect compound eye: Insights into ocular form and function.Developmental biology · 2021Review
- A 390 million-year-old hyper-compound eye in Devonian phacopid trilobites.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- Points of view in understanding trilobite eyes.Nature communications · 2021Article
- Insights into a 429-million-year-old compound eye.Scientific reports · 2020Article
- Insights into the 400 million-year-old eyes of giant sea scorpions (Eurypterida) suggest the structure of Palaeozoic compound eyes.Scientific reports · 2019Article
- Collective behaviour in 480-million-year-old trilobite arthropods from Morocco.Scientific reports · 2019Article
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3 authors.
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Abstract
Until now, the fossil record has not been capable of revealing any details of the mechanisms of complex vision at the beginning of metazoan evolution. Here, we describe functional units, at a cellular level, of a compound eye from the base of the Cambrian, more than half a billion years old. Remains of early Cambrian arthropods showed the external lattices of enormous compound eyes, but not the internal structures or anything about how those compound eyes may have functioned. In a phosphatized trilobite eye from the lower Cambrian of the Baltic, we found lithified remnants of cellular systems, typical of a modern focal apposition eye, similar to those of a bee or dragonfly. This shows that sophisticated eyes already existed at the beginning of the fossil record of higher organisms, while the differences between the ancient system and the internal structures of a modern apposition compound eye open important insights into the evolution of vision.
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