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If you’re ever thinking how those pair of eyes on your head got started then you’re in good luck because scientists at the University of California discovered where it all started. Believe it or not, the eyes we have today began it’s evolutionary journey about 600 million years ago in an aquatic animal called a Hydra. These lowly animal developed light-receptive genes call “opsins” which is basically the origin of animal vision.

Opsin genes (blue) in Hydra
Source: LiveScience - Origin of Vision Discovered

Yes, such vision was not 20-20 back then but it gave the Hydra - a genus of freshwater animals that are kin to corals and jellyfish - an advantage in looking for food. Scientists studied these hydras and found that these tiny creatures (only a few millimeters in diameter) have opsin proteins all over their body.

Are those eyes? No. Opsins - which are concentrated more in the mouth area of Hydras - are merely light-sensing proteins that help Hydras detect light in their search for prey. Because studies of animals that evolved earlier, such a sponges,
don’t show the same light sensitivity, scientists were able to pinpoint the Precambrian date that animal vision first started to evolve.

“We now have a time frame for the evolution of animal light sensitivity,” said study leader David Plachetzki, a UC Santa Barbara graduate student. “We know its precursors existed roughly 600 million years ago.”

Thanks to the lowly hydras.

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