According to their structure, they were similar to the visual apparatus of the modern insects.
The discovery was made by two paleontologists, Brigitte schünemann and Euan Clarcona, while studying the fossil remains of a trilobite age of 429 million years. These remains were discovered in the Czech Republic in the nineteenth century, and, in principle, does not represent anything unusual for their species. As recognized herself schünemann, this instance and his big eyes just struck her as “very pretty”. But what then could see in those big eyes with the help of electronic microscope, it turned out, according to the scientists, “stunning”.
Before to harden the eyes of the ancient arthropod has burst, and it allowed schünemann and Clarkson, to look at their internal structure, finding there a mosaic structure, strongly reminiscent of the facets of the eyes of modern insects. This is what has surprised scientists. “They were wonderful compound eyes that differ from our own, explains schünemann. – We have a lens through which we see the picture, and the compound eyes are arranged differently — here the vision works as a mosaic with hundreds of lenses”.
According to paleontologists, the resolution of the eye of the trilobite was still not as high as today’s insects — they counted it has only about 200 facets, while modern dragonflies, for example, have thirty thousand. However, the study authors believe that the vision of a prehistoric animal copes with its functions and allowed him, in particular, time to escape from predators-Cephalopoda. “The system worked the eye of a trilobite were elaborated, and so it has survived to the present day,” says schünemann
