Adaptive evolution of color vision of the Comoran coelacanth (Latimeria chalumnae).
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Yokoyama S
PROVIDER: S-EPMC26872 | biostudies-literature | 1999 May
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Publications
Adaptive evolution of color vision of the Comoran coelacanth (Latimeria chalumnae).
Yokoyama S S Zhang H H Radlwimmer F B FB Blow N S NS
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 19990501 11
The coelacanth, a "living fossil," lives near the coast of the Comoros archipelago in the Indian Ocean. Living at a depth of about 200 m, the Comoran coelacanth receives only a narrow range of light, at about 480 nm. To detect the entire range of "color" at this depth, the coelacanth appears to use only two closely related paralogous RH1 and RH2 visual pigments with the optimum light sensitivities (lambdamax) at 478 nm and 485 nm, respectively. The lambdamax values are shifted about 20 nm toward ...[more]
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