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Name: Lori
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Country: N/A
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Question:
In terrestrial environments, vertebrate prey species tend to have lateral placement of the eyes, allowing them to have panoramic vision. Terrestrial predators, on the other hand, have frontally places eyes, allowing for binocular vision and better depth perception. In marine environments, both aquatic predator and prey species have laterally placed eyes; why is this so?


Replies:
This is only a theory as it's hard to prove a "why" for evolution. In an aquatic environment, it's much more difficult to do a lateral rotation because of the fluid density. Frontal eye placement would require greater rotation to keep the prey in view as it darts to one side or the other.

Don


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