Abstract
The vertebrate eye is one of the most conservative of organs. At a casual glance a Coelacanth eye is not so very different from our own, and even a lamprey eye is recognisably the same organ as our own. The underwater light climate may scatter more light, may be more monochromatic and be darker in the daytime, but the basic laws of optics are the same underwater as on land. The most obvious adaptations that fishes show are to the dim light at depth, the monochromatic nature of the underwater light and the more directional distribution of the spacelight.
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Lythgoe, J.N. (1980). Vision in Fishes: Ecological Adaptations. In: Ali, M.A. (eds) Environmental Physiology of Fishes. NATO Advanced Study Institutes Series, vol 35. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-3659-2_16
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