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Current views on vision in mammals

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Abstract

The review summarizes the available data on vision in mammals, including visual pigments, color and contrast vision, and visual behavior in different species. It has been shown that, in the course of evolution, mammals were gradually losing elements of the daylight cone vision system typical of other vertebrates. Monotremes still possess SWS2 (blue-sensitive 2) and MWS/LWS (green/red-sensitive) cone visual pigments, as well as RH1 rod pigment. Eutheria, except some primates, also have two cone visual pigments, SWS1 (ultraviolet/violetor blue-sensitive 1) and MWS/LWS, along with RH1 of rods. In humans and some other higher primates, gene duplication resulted in the acquisition of a new visual pigment, MWS, and enabled trichromatic vision. Marine mammals (cetaceans and pinnipeds) and some species of other orders have lost also the SWS1 pigment, which is probably related to the specific processing of the information received by these cones. We discuss current views on mammal vision based on two cone pigments and rods and provide the data on spectral sensitivity peaks that characterize visual pigments in different species and orders, as well as the data on spatial contrast sensitivity. High levels of visual acuity are found in ungulates and primates (up to 20–38 cycles/deg), and the highest acuity characterizes humans with their specialized fovea (30–60 cycles/deg).

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  1. Kharkevich Institute of Information Transmission Problems, Russian Academy of Sciences, Bolshoi Karetnyi pereulok 19, Moscow, 127994, Russia

    T. V. Khokhlova

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Original Russian Text © T.V. Khokhlova, 2012, published in Zhurnal Obshchei Biologii, 2012, Vol. 73, No. 6, pp. 418–434.

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Khokhlova, T.V. Current views on vision in mammals. Biol Bull Rev 3, 347–361 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1134/S207908641305006X

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