Barreleye fish sees through its own head

[The Overlord]

You have to hand it to mother nature; you must respect her when she's angry and unbalanced, and love her when she's deucedly creative. I love finding articles like this...it's like, what's nature going to come up with for her next trick? Thing is, when we do manage to find life on other planets, given how weird it gets down here, are we going to be prepared for what we find?  :-\

http://www.boingboing.net/2009/02/25/fish-with-transparen.html

Since 1939, scientists have thought the "barreleye" fish Macropinna microstoma had "tunnel vision" due to eye that were fixed in place. Now though, Monterey Bay Aquarium researchers show that the fish actually has a transparent head and the eyes rotate around inside of it. From the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute:


(Bruce) Robison and (Kim) Reisenbichler used video from MBARI's remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) to study barreleyes in the deep waters just offshore of Central California. At depths of 600 to 800 meters (2,000 to 2,600 feet) below the surface, the ROV cameras typically showed these fish hanging motionless in the water, their eyes glowing a vivid green in the ROV's bright lights. The ROV video also revealed a previously undescribed feature of these fish--its eyes are surrounded by a transparent, fluid-filled shield that covers the top of the fish's head.

Most existing descriptions and illustrations of this fish do not show its fluid-filled shield, probably because this fragile structure was destroyed when the fish were brought up from the deep in nets. However, Robison and Reisenbichler were extremely fortunate--they were able to bring a net-caught barreleye to the surface alive, where it survived for several hours in a ship-board aquarium. Within this controlled environment, the researchers were able to confirm what they had seen in the ROV video--the fish rotated its tubular eyes as it turned its body from a horizontal to a vertical position.

[Oniya]

I wish the video had shown it in the process of rotating the eyes, instead of just the upward looking and forward looking views.

On the other point, the weirder the things that show up on planet Earth, the weirder they'll have to be out there for us to think of them as weird.

That will probably make less sense when I'm not on sleep-dep.

[Avi]

Seeing stuff like this makes me picture God as a magician, going "And now... for my next trick..."

[Lithos]

I still doubt wether the fish "see" anything though, sea at that depth is world of complete darkness, no light at all.

[The Overlord]

I still doubt wether the fish "see" anything though, sea at that depth is world of complete darkness, no light at all.

Well, yes, no light in the visible spectrum. Is this thing restricted to that wavelength range as we are?