Talk:Reptiles
From Comparative Physiology of Vision
Comments by Mike
Looks great folks. Very thorough. Here are a few general comments and things you might want to address. I think you mentioned most of these things, so just look over them and see if you want to add stuff or clarify things.
Are most reptiles near sighted or far sighted? they might have been the first creature to use lens accomodation...remember that birds and mammals descend from these guys. (good for the evolution section). annular pads? binocular vision in reptiles?
I am kind of interested in vision of testudines: most ancient of living reptiles. I think that turtles have almost all cones (a bit rare)...what do you think their night vision is? How do reptiles get warm? are they active much at night. Different lens in land versus sea turtles...in what way? might want to look at the bird wiki since birds also have oil droplets. what wavelengths would turtles see best? I read that sea turtles might use light to navigate under water...how? Turtles can retract their eyes into their head...pretty cool...why?. turtles don't have pupils...how do they deal with glare?
Crocodilians: is their vision better in water or out of water? they do have interesting pupils: stenopeic pupils...also in lizards...expand on this.
chameleons have unique eyes. they seem to work independent of each other...but they must have great binocular vision to catch insects with their tongue. How do they do this with just one eye? do chameleons have good acuity/large fovea?
snakes: do they have oil droplets? why not? perhaps their descendents spent most of their time underground where they use a different sense (infrared)???not sure about this. differences in pupils between diurnal and nocturnal snakes? Infrared vision: discuss this a bit even though it really is a separate sense (technically somatosense derived from the trigeminal nerve). How is the infrared info and the visual info combined? Why does a cobra weave back and forth before striking? double foveas in tree snakes?
Photo transduction looks like some serious business.
Andrew: So I've noticed that Reptiles fall into 6 Subspecies:
1.Amphisbaenia (worm lizards)
2.Serpentes (snakes)
3.Sauria (lizards)
4.Testudines (turtles)
5.Crocodylia (crocodiles)
6.Rhynchocephalia (tuataras)
I've been working on Snakes quite a bit. I've got the infrared vision down but cannot find ANYTHING on their regular vision. If anyone has anything to add, please do. Since there are 6 of us. We should all focus on ONE species. Sounds like the best way to split things up, of course we can always help one another. What do you guys think?
