Starfish use their eyes to stay close to home, researchers find
Wednesday, January 8, 2014 - 11:31
in Biology & Nature
(Phys.org) —A starfish has an eye at the end of each arm. While scientists have known about the existence of these eyes for about two hundred years, until now, they haven't been able to find out what starfish can see or what starfish use their eyes for. By performing morphological studies as well as behavioral experiments, Anders Garm and Dan-Eric Nilsson have discovered that starfish can see very low resolution images, and they use their eyes to avoid straying too far from their habitats. Their research appears in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.