• Question: would swimming in darkness change the way we see normally?

    Asked by elsjc20 to Stefan, Anna on 13 Nov 2014.
    • Photo: Anna Scaife

      Anna Scaife answered on 13 Nov 2014:

      The pupil of your eye reacts to the amount of ambient light around you so that you can see as well as possible in different levels of light and darkness. So if you went swimming in the dark, at first you wouldn’t be able to see as well as normal but then your pupil would react and your vision would improve. When you went back into normal light your pupil would react again.

      If a particular species spent most of their time swimming in darkness then evolution might alter their genetics over a long period of time to evolve them a larger pupil or an eye more sensitive to different wavelengths of light in order to compensate. Like bush babies (Galagos), or Golem from LOTR 🙂

    • Photo: Stefan Lines

      Stefan Lines answered on 13 Nov 2014:

      Only in the short term, like Anna has explained. Have you ever looked in the mirror with the light off, then, whilst still looking at the mirror, switched the light one and seen the pupils in your eyes go big to small?

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