Re: Animals with three eyes

[P3D John W Roberts <roberts@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>Date: Fri, 12 Apr 1996 21:06:51 -0500
>From: P3D Wolfie!  <werewolf@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>Subject: Animals with three eyes

>Yes there is an animal with three eyes, it's a lizard which lives in 
>New Zealand...

>The eye is right on the top of it's head, but over time has almost
>disappeared, however it is still capable of sensing light which helps
>it to escape from predators.

>Wolfie!

Well done - I was beginning to think nobody else had heard of them.

What's really surprising is that nobody has mentioned the alleged human
"third eye" - a structure that may have once been a primitive eye, now
buried deep within the brain. (Unfortunately, I've forgotten what it's 
called.)

Humans seem to have a number of "evolutionary leftover" senses that aren't
used any more. For instance, I heard in the last year or two that the human
body appears to contain the remains of a "magnetic compass" of the sort that
some birds and other creatures have, but it probably is no longer hooked up.
That sense would be handy for not getting lost in the woods, but it might
be inconvenient for getting close to machinery, or traveling in space.

John R

p.s.: regarding the "four-eyed fish" - I believe they really only have two
eyes, but each eye has a very different upper and lower structure, for
seeing above and below the water line. The archer fish may have this kind of
eye. (This eye structure was mentioned in the famous lecture on binary optics
at NIST, several years ago.)

John R


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