See-Through Shrimp-Like Creature Has a Dozen Retinas in Each Eye

Plants and Animals





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Gravid female P. gacilis. Eggs are visible as a white mass in the brood pouch. White arrow indicates the photosensory portion of an ommatidial group. Scale bar = 2 mm / J.L.B. Fergus et al., Current Biology 2015

Sunlight is only visible in the top one thousand meters of the ocean, and the pressures of living in the dim, blue deep has led to some bizarre adaptations. A tiny shrimp-like critter called Paraphronima gracilis lives in intermediate, or mesopelagic, habitats—depths that are totally dark to our eyes.