| Abstract: | Simultaneously with the development of animal body plans, probably before the Precambrian, there was an explosive diversification of visual systems. Competition of performance in these visual systems was a critical factor in the evolution of life systems.
Here we analyse the visual system in the lobopod Miraluolishania haikouensis ( Liu et al ., 2004 ) from the Lower Cambrian Chengjiang Lagerstätte, Kunming, China. It consists of a very small eye with a miniscule lens. A physical problem lies in the fact that due to the usual refractive conditions of such a lens, it hardly represents an improvement of the visual quality over the basal pit- or pinhole camera eyes. To develop such a lavish visual system, however, would not have been of any value, if it achieved no more than an equal level or represented even a retrograde step in evolutionary progress. We show how this system may have allowed pattern recognition even under poor light conditions. Optimization of such a tiny eye is costly but is not 'a wasted effort' in evolution. In M. haikouensis ( Liu et al. , 2004 ), an excellently adapted miniscule visual system has become possible. |
