No sunglasses required for fish supper
Just as fishermen wear Polaroid sunglasses to help improve contrast, fish have evolved to do the very same thing without the need of sunglasses. In a paper published this month in the Biophysical Journal, Dr Nicholas Roberts of Manchester University reports how individual light sensitive cells within the retina of goldfish are able to detect polarised light.
It's believed this type of polarisation vision improves visual contrast and can help an animal catch its prey more easily.
Researchers say this latest research is important because it is the first direct experimental evidence of a polarisation detection mechanism in any normal vertebrate eye.