No life on earth has eyes anywhere else but on their head, why is this?

I take your point on what type of eye the creature has but fail to see how you could judge an eyes performance, evolution states that if it is there it is successful or of no use what so ever...you seem to be stating that a creature with large eyes but a proportionally smaller brain, equals poor eyes...why do we see these creatures today.? why haven`t predators finished them off.?

Did you like the giraffe.?...if something as important as being able to feed yourself appears in the osteology of a vertebrate unable to use these structures for that purpose, I would guess that numbers/size of eyes etc must be following a like pattern of proportion but at what level I am unsure, it seems to be more than evolutionary lightspots, nerve length and brain size.

Scallops have eyes, primitive though they are, but do not have heads. So maybe you need to restrict your consideration to vertebrates only.

reply to post by milkfish

Man…
I was just going to say that… Darn…
BTW is it scalloping season yet?

reply to post by defcon5


I hope not. I am allergic to them (mussels too, which don't have eyes).

reply to post by Desolate Cancer


Ok here is the truth.
#1 jellyfishe have up to 32 eyes called ocelli, similar to vertebrate eyes, and can see shapes, distances and colors. But they have no brain and are we using jellyfish in this post or just land life? Some jellyfishes have no eyes.

#2 No the eyes are not on the head for faster input the eyes can see at the speed of light and the brain can process at about 20 million billion calculations per second.

#3 The eyes help the brain to "know" whats around it. What i mean is when to duck,close your eyes,put up your arms or move your head. See the brain only cares about its self ,not you or your body unless it can hurt or kill the brain. And haveing the eyes so close to the brain lets it "feel" where it is in the time/space line of life.

Originally posted by jjkenobi
Good question!

I think bats deserve some type of attention in this thread. And do creatures like jelly fish have eyes?

there is one type of jellyfish that does have a rudimentary eye, and actively seeks out its prey, although its species name escapes me at the moment... star and flag for this one OP as lots of thoughts traverse the corners of my mind, but never this one!

quote me if i am wrong but im certain ive heard somewhere that flies see in a certain form of timelapse(actions appear slowed down to them) so when something endangers them they have got plenty of time to react and escape....
thats why you can never catch the little buggers!!

[edit on 12-7-2009 by DARREN1976]

[edit on 12-7-2009 by DARREN1976]

Really awesome responses. The thing with that one Jellyfish looks interesting.

Reading a seperate article about about baby animals, another observation about this came to mind. Not all but many baby animals dont open their eyes for many days or weeks after being born.

Could this be because the eyes themselves are so sensitive when first born or maybe that the brain has not yet fully developed enough to handle the influx of information that comes in from the eyes.

Originally posted by ironbutterflyrusted
Guess what a giraffe could bite its toenails.

This is #ing hilarious!!

Hell,

Why not just be God?

Probably just not enough time for most life to evolve into the omnipotent.

Will it happen?

Probably.

Maybe somewhere in the universe there is a planet where a humanoid evolved with eyes where we have nipples. Imagine such a species came here and landed their UFO on the White House lawn; we'd have people with picket signs demanding that they go blindfolded.