
Brittle starfish are second known example of vision in an organism without eyes - bookofjoe
https://www.cell.com/current-biology/pdfExtended/S0960-9822(19)31512-X
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bookofjoe
>Only one species of sea urchin has ‘passed’ the same tests for vision, and it
also, independently, changes color in response to light levels. Future work
will probe whether this sea urchin, the only other animal in the world known
to see without eyes, might be using a similar trick to Ophiocoma.

Source: [https://scitechdaily.com/scientists-just-showed-that-
color-c...](https://scitechdaily.com/scientists-just-showed-that-color-
changing-brittle-stars-can-see-even-though-they-dont-have-eyes/)

~~~
JTon
The term they use to describe this phenomena is "extraocular vision". Defined
as the ability to see without eyes.

More info: [https://aspirantworld.in/extraocular-
vision/](https://aspirantworld.in/extraocular-vision/)

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hamburga
Couldn't you say that any plant that orients itself towards the sun (e.g.
sunflower) can detect light without eyes?

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CryptoPunk
Sensing light is distinguished from seeing in the first sentence of the
abstract:

>>Almost all animals can sense light, but only those with spatial vision can
‘‘see.’’

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jonnydubowsky
This amazing type of sensory perception reminded me of another animal w/ a
star shaped apparatus [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star-
nosed_mole](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star-nosed_mole).

My favorite quote from the Wikipedia entry, "evolution has repeatedly come to
the same solution for constructing a high-acuity sensory system: subdivide the
sensory surface into a large, lower-resolution periphery for scanning a wide
range of stimuli, and a small, high-resolution area that can be focused on
objects of importance" -Vanderbilt University neuroscientist Kenneth Catania

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dekhn
Cuttlefish probably have some sort of vision on their skin; they are able to
make camouflage which matches the color of their environment, but their eyes
only have black and white vision. Note, this is still evolving science, see
[https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/07/how-colorblind-
cuttl...](https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/07/how-colorblind-cuttlefish-
may-see-living-color) for one explanation.

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evanriley
I have a (fairly stupid) question after reading this...

Is the human brain hard-coded for vision through eyes or is it possible to a
(at least similar) form of vision without eyes, or like a much less
exaggerated form of sonar like Daredevil, is the human brain REALLY that
adaptable?

In an attempt to restore vision to those that lost it, is their a way to
mentally rehab someone to "see" in a different way?

~~~
danwills
I read about a blind guy who had a camera hooked up to an array of electrodes
on his back and eventually was able to 'see' using it. That was a long time
ago, but it looks like it's still a thing nowadays, see 'Brainport' [1] and
'Visual Prosthesis' [2] (aka 'bionic eye'). It's amazing how plastic brains
and nervous systems seem to be!

[1] [https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/device-lets-
blind...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/device-lets-blind-see-
with-tongues/)

[2]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_prosthesis](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_prosthesis)

~~~
esotericsean
That’s amazing and actually reminds me of a book I read about young Merlin. As
a child Merlin was blinded but learned to “see” by sensing objects with magic.
Eventually he became so good at it that even though he didn’t use his eyes, it
was just as good as normal sight.

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pmontra
This should be tagged as PDF.

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userbinator
Although HN can't really do anything about it, it's also worth noting the PDF
linked is named "mmc3.pdf", which greatly confused me for a moment because I
happened to also have the MMC-3 spec[1] opened in my PDF reader, and it's also
roughly the same size.

[1]
[http://www.13thmonkey.org/documentation/SCSI/mmc3r10g.pdf](http://www.13thmonkey.org/documentation/SCSI/mmc3r10g.pdf)

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userbinator
I suppose it depends on what you consider "eyes" \-- these starfish could be
said to have many effectively single-pixel "eyes" instead of two high-
resolution ones.

~~~
Angostura
Eye is fairly well defined in biology. Think of it as the difference between
'light sensor' and 'camera'. A fully-formed eye will incorporate some form of
lens.

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doctor_eval
> Echinoderms form the focus of extraocular vision research

Very droll.

