Eye Makeup Detail

Overview
Complex eyes can distinguish shapes and colors. The visual fields of many organisms, especially predators, involve large areas of binocular vision to improve depth perception; in other organisms, eyes are located so as to maximize the field of view, such as in rabbits and horses, which have monocular vision.
The first proto-eyes evolved among animals 600 million years ago, about the time of the Cambrian explosion. The last common ancestor of animals possessed the biochemical toolkit necessary for vision, and more advanced eyes have evolved in 96% of animal species in six of the thirty-plus main phyla. In most vertebrates and some molluscs, the eye works by allowing light to enter and project onto a light-sensitive panel of cells, known as the retina, at the rear of the eye. The cone cells (for color) and the rod cells (for low-light contrasts) in the retina detect and convert light into neural signals for vision. The visual signals are then transmitted to the brain via the optic nerve. Such eyes are typically roughly spherical, filled with a transparent gel-like substance called the vitreous humour, with a focusing lens and often an iris; the relaxing or tightening of the muscles around the iris change the size of the pupil, thereby regulating the amount of light that enters the eye, and reducing aberrations when there is enough light.