Quad-Ops
Spiders have eight, and box-jellies twenty-four,
Scallops have hundreds, and dragonflies thousands,
And digital cameras even more !
But vertebrates make do with two,
Plus the odd ocelli peeping-through –
But only a couple of retinas –
A pair of light-bucket dishes –
Well, except for a few strange fishes !
And I don’t mean the four-eyed anableps,
Who see through both the water and air,
And focus the light through diff’rent steps
But onto the same old patch of cells,
That parallels the ones we chordates share.
No, I mean the brownsnout spookfish –
They may not look as swish as barreleyes,
Until we realise that here may be
The ancestor of a whole new tree
Of multi-looking vertebrates to arise –
That one day may just populate
The future Earth with their future eyes.
Rhyming Couplets 