A genetic mutation in the eyes of right whales hinders their visual ability and makes them more susceptible to entanglement in fishing gear, one of the leading causes of death in this critically endangered mammal species. In a study published in the Journal of Comparative Neurology, Lorian Schweikert and Michael Grace, the Institute of Technology Florida, and Jeffry Fasick, University of Tampa (United States), indicate that this species of whale has a lower population 500 individuals in the western Atlantic ocean.
The researchers found the mutation in the eyes of whales in the North Atlantic and Greenland and state that can seriously damage their ability to avoid “visual mess” before fishing nets because they lack the proteins that detect normal light cones photoreceptor cells. With these results scientists cloned and sequenced the gene encoding the protein opsin.
Human beings have several of these genes, which provides excellent color vision, but thought that whales and their relatives have one. Now, researchers indicate that some species of cetaceans have broken that gene.
Working at the Laboratory of Behavioral Neuroscience Institute of Technology Florida and the Center for High Resolution Microscopy, scientists studied how this mutation affects the retina analyzing the bowhead whale.
Schweikert and Grace found that rod cells (which detect light in low vision remain), while functional cone cells are completely absent in the retina of the bowhead whale.
“The cone cells normally require bright light for vision. With only canes, right whales can have very poor vision when they surface to breathe. This can make it difficult for them to avoid entanglement in fishing nets, one of the leading causes of death of these animals critically endangered “Schweikert said.
