Snakes Credited For Our Keen Vision

Indonesian mud snake, Borneo. Photo courtesy of AFP.

by Staff Writers
UPI Correspondent
Davis CA (UPI) Aug 30, 2006
A University of California anthropologist says humans need to thank the snake for helping them develop their vision to see inches away. Lynne Isbell at the UC-Davis campus says the ability of humans to have such sharp eyesight resulted from a "biological arms race" millions of years ago between primates and snakes, especially the poisonous kind, reports ABC News.

The primates eventually won the battle and their revulsion against the reptiles continues among their human descendants.

Isbell's study appears in the Journal of Human Evolution. Scientists believe primates developed near-vision to capture bugs or pluck a fruit.

Isbell says monkeys and apes of Africa needed to improve their vision to protect themselves from being consumed by snakes lurking nearby as the latter are harmless from a distance.

Isbell says African primates, who have had to battle snakes the longest, have the keenest vision. At the other end, the Lemurs of Madagascar, who have never been preyed on by venomous snakes, have the poorest vision.

"Primates have the best vision of all mammals," she says. "And we have the best vision of all primates."

Source: United Press International

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