Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 20, 2026

A Bioinformatics Pipeline for Investigating Molecular Evolution and Gene Expression using RNA-seq
Published on: May 28, 2021
Historical perspective on the development and evolution of eyes and photoreceptors
1Dept. Cell Biology, Biozentrum, University of Basel, Switzerland. walter.gehring@unibas.ch
Abstract:
The development and evolution of eyes is an "old problem" in biology, which required a special treatment in Charles Darwin's "Origin of the species" (1882) under the heading of "Difficulties of the theory". Darwin postulated a simple and imperfect eye, as a prototype, which can vary and evolve under natural selection into more complex and perfect eyes. Based upon morphological criteria and the different modes of development of the different kinds of eyes, neodarwinists have postulated that the various eye-types are polyphyletic in origin and that the eyes have evolved independently in the various animal phyla. Recent developmental genetic experiments and molecular phylogenetic analyses cast serious doubts on this interpretation and argue strongly for a monophyletic origin of the eyes from a Darwinian prototype and subsequent divergent, parallel and convergent evolution leading to the various eye-types.
Related Concept Videos
Anatomy of the Eyeball
Photoreceptors and Visual Pathways
Vision
The Retina
Photoreceptors and Plant Responses to Light
Channel Rhodopsins
Rhodopsins belong to the family of cell surface proteins called G-protein coupled receptors,...

