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“There’s a growing understanding that the ability to see without eyes or eye-like structures, called extraocular photoreception, is more widespread than we thought,” says Julia Sigwart, an evolutionary biologist at Queen’s University Belfast, UK, and a study co-author.

Vision is an advanced form of photoreception — that is, light sensing.

Vision is an advanced form of photoreception – that is, light sensing.

Finally, an unexpected recent finding in research led by Solomon Snyder and Dan Berkowitz, also at Johns Hopkins University, found that blood vessels in mice contain melanopsin, the opsin used in retinal nonvisual photoreception.

Rhodopsin, a marker for photoreception, was found at only 3 per cent of the level of normal retinal cells, suggesting that it may be necessary for scientists to reprogramme the cells.