Mantis shrimps change eyes for different depths reported Nature, vol 411, p547, 31 May, 2001. American and Australian biologists who studied mantis shrimps living around Lizard Island (Queensland, Australia) found that shrimps of the same species had different filters and light sensitive pigment in their eyes, depending on the depth of the water they lived in. Shrimps in deeper water live in a different colour environment to those in the shallows because not all colours in white light penetrate through water. To prove that shrimps were adjusting their eyes to the depth/light, environment scientists took baby shrimps, whose colour vision systems are all the same, and raised them under artificial lights in the laboratory that simulated light colours at different water depths. The baby shrimps all started with the same vision but changed to suit the different light they were exposed to.
Editorial Comment: This is an excellent example of adaptation. The shrimps were able to respond to the different light conditions because they already had the means of making the different pigments and filters built into them. It shows clearly that adaptation is the result of genetically inbuilt processes that fine tune living things so they can cope with changes in their environment. It does not need mutations to make it work or change the existing organisms into new organisms. Their Creator designed them to be able to live in different depths of water. (Ref. Shrimp, Adaptation, design)