04/19/2025
Octopus eye 🐙 👁️
Octopus eyes are fascinating and unique. While they lack the ability to see color like humans do, they have remarkable visual abilities, including the ability to detect the polarization of light which humans cannot. Octopus eyes are also camouflaged by cellular layers of chromatophores (cells that contain pigment and produce color) and have a dumbbell-shaped pupil that acts like a prism, scattering light and splitting it into color components allowing them to focus different wavelengths of light on the retina individually. This effect is called chromatic aberration which allows octopus to focus on different colors at different distances enhancing their ability to navigate and hunt in various lighting conditions.
This octopus eye belongs to a Common Octopus which I photographed at the Blue Heron Bridge in Riviera Beach, Florida using D850 camera attached with a 105mm lens inside a lit with DS 161 strobes.
