This beautiful article in The Atlantic by Alexis Madrigal talks about the eyes of cetaceans or whales and has some beautiful imagery from photographer Bryant Austin. More importantly, the article asks: “So, what does the world look like to a whale?” which is a fundamental question in comparative anatomy.
The really unusual thing about this article is that vision science gets very little coverage in the popular press and this particular article discusses some of the science of vision including retinal science, after interviews with Leo Peichl who studies comparative anatomy of the mammalian retina at Max Planck. I’ve long admired Leo’s work and am pleased to see it covered in The Atlantic along with work by Sonke Johnsen, Michael Land and Dan-Eric Nilsson, particularly by one of my favorite writers, Alexis Madrigal.
Image of Ella the whale’s eye from Bryant Austin.