I'm surprised they didn't mention jumping spiders (Salticidae), which are notable because they are inverts, have the ability to see an unusual number of colors, and unlike the mantis shrimp can be <i>trained</i> on them. Also another advantage is they can be rewarded with sugar water. Evolutionarily, their eyesight is a marvel. No other spiders really have anything approaching it.<p><a href="https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/05/150518-jumping-spider-color-vision-mating-animals-science/" rel="nofollow">https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/05/150518-jumping-s...</a><p>I have a couple as pets (<a href="https://medium.com/@melissamcewen/how-i-ended-up-with-pet-jumping-spiders-187d70a3e296" rel="nofollow">https://medium.com/@melissamcewen/how-i-ended-up-with-pet-ju...</a>) and sometimes have managed to get them interested in videos of other bugs but I'd like to develop something geared just towards them. There are a couple of things like this used in the lab, but nothing open sourced that I know of.
One of my favorite eye related articles talks about The Hobbit and why 48FPS looks so bad to some people: <a href="http://accidentalscientist.com/2014/12/why-movies-look-weird-at-48fps-and-games-are-better-at-60fps-and-the-uncanny-valley.html" rel="nofollow">http://accidentalscientist.com/2014/12/why-movies-look-weird...</a><p>It turns out our eyes vibrate a bit(~80HZ) to get a higher information density by injecting noise, increasing sampling above the discrete quantization[1]. His theory is that 48FPS ends up being really close to the nyquist limit and wreaks all sorts of havok on how we process the film.<p>[1] <a href="https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/69748/using-noise-to-increase-effective-resolution-of-adc" rel="nofollow">https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/69748/using-...</a>
I've always wondered what having eyes in the back (or side) of your head would be <i>like</i>. Two eyes in the front is kind of like a cockpit, you see forward and have to turn. Would having an eye in the back of your head be... Behind you? Would you be aware of the blind spots around the side of your head?<p>We are very ingrained in having forward facing sight, I think the mere idea of having eyes in a different position is pretty incomprehensible to us
Richard Dawkins has talked about this fascinating subject several times in interviews (and in his books). It is a beautiful demonstration of how complexity and seemingly magical things can emerge from small changes over large periods of time.
e.g:
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzERmg4PU3c" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzERmg4PU3c</a>
Although this is rather dated, if you liked that article you may also like Richard Dawkins' talk on the evolution of the eye:
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2X1iwLqM2t0" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2X1iwLqM2t0</a><p>It's pretty cool seeing a much younger energetic Richard Dawkins talk about how the eye evolved multiple times.