Possible Wavelength Discrimination by Multibank Retinae in Deep-Sea Fishes

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Abstract
Experiments on intact retinae from the eyes of the deep-sea fishDiretmus argenteusshow that the region of the retina that receives light from above and possesses very long rods has different photosensitive pigments from the region that receives light from below. In both of these regions the retina has several banks of rods. The optical densities of thephotosensitivepigments in the retina at the peaks of absorption are almost the same (about one) in these two regions. However, the region of the retina with very long rods also contains astableyellow pigment that absorbs heavily in the blue and near ultra-violet (optical density about three at the wavelength 390 nm). If, as seems certain, this stable pigment is largely in the long rods it will filter the light reaching the other layers of rods and act, for this region, as yellow lenses do for whole retinae in other fish. The lens ofDiretmuswas shown to be transparent in the visible and near ultra-violet.

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