Elsevier

Vision Research

Volume 24, Issue 10, 1984, Pages 1261-1266
Vision Research

Refractive state, depth of focus and accommodation of the eye of the California ground squirrel (Spermophilus Beecheyi)

https://doi.org/10.1016/0042-6989(84)90180-9Get rights and content

Abstract

Retinoscopy and electrophysiological refraction were performed on 55 and 24 faraccommodated eyes of California ground squirrels (Spermophilus beecheyi), respectively. These two indices were highly correlated, revealing the eye of this animal to be roughly emmetropic (−0.25 to −0.13 D). Depth of focus was assessed by measuring the effect which defocusing produced on the spatial resolving power of 32 optic nerve fibers. Depth of focus of the ground squirrel eye for a pupil diameter of 2.5 mm is estimated to be ± 1.6 D, but will increase rapidly for smaller pupils. Accommodation in eleven ground squirrels ranged from 2 to 6 D, with a mean value of 3.9 D.

References (29)

  • BarlowH.B. et al.

    Retinal ganglion cells responding selectively to direction and speed of image motion in the rabbit

    J. Physiol.

    (1964)
  • BornM. et al.

    Principles of Optics

    (1959)
  • FitchH.S.

    Ecology of the California ground squirrel on grazing land

    Am. mid. Nat.

    (1948)
  • GlicksteinM. et al.

    Retinoscopy and eye size

    Science

    (1970)
  • Cited by (11)

    • Vision: Vertebrates

      2019, Encyclopedia of Animal Behavior, Second Edition: Volume 1-5
    • Functional cell classes and functional architecture in the early visual system of a highly visual rodent

      2005, Progress in Brain Research
      Citation Excerpt :

      Many tree- and ground squirrels are diurnal, have good blue–green color vision, and have cone-dominated retinas, similar to the primate fovea. Squirrels have relatively good acuity and high contrast sensitivity (Jacobs et al., 1982) that is slightly superior to tree shrews (Petry et al., 1984), and possess a highly elaborated visual system, including large eyes with good optics (McCourt and Jacobs, 1984), a large and well-laminated lateral geniculate nucleus and V1 with robust visual responses (Hall et al., 1972; Kaas et al., 1972; Van Hooser et al., 2003; Heimel et al., 2005), and a large superior colliculus and pulvinar. In the early mammalian visual system, ganglion cells in the retina project to relay cells in the LGN, which in turn project to the V1.

    View all citing articles on Scopus
    View full text