One eye species

The one eye animal, or the cyclops entity, puzzles me. What benefits does having only one organ to see bring to the creature? The majority of species accross the planet have at least two.

Holoprosencephaly ("one forebrain" ) This is a disease that produces infants with one eye. They don't live long. This is probably where the stories of cyclop's come from. Yes, it serves no good purpose.

You seem to believe that there really are one-eyed creatures.

While some mutants have been found (i.e. animals with deformities in the form of a single eye... recently a shark embryo was found with a single eye), I don't think that there are any species of one-eyed creatures.

(Anyone should feel free to correct me here, but please provide a picture.)

As to mythological cyclopses... benefits... to be more scary.

There is some evidence that in ancient times mastodon skulls may actually have been mistaken for cyclops skulls as they appear to have a single eye in the center of the forehead.

I'd like you to meet my friend his name is depth perception

Having 8 eyes is much better.

The only one-eyed creature alive today would be the legendary "Trouser Snake."

The legendary video game Doom features the Cacodemon, a creature that has one eye and flies about. It was created in the spawning vats of the demons as a combat model for hell´s army. Using this as a theoretical model, why would the creators have made a creature that lacks the ability to see in three dimmensions?

Could someone please shed some light on this matter? Militarily speaking, the sniper rifle is one other such example as to why telescopic vision is necessary, yet I cannot explain why the confined vision of a living being is engineered into a combat model creature, as the cacodemon so finally illustrates.

Having two eyes, I can´t put myself in its position.

I'll be happy to shed some light on this matter..

the beast you're referring to is computer generated.. It can do anything it likes.. it's not bound by physical laws, because it's not physical.

If you want to find an actual living animal that has successfully evolved with a single eye, then we can talk about it.

Found a one-eyed creature. Cyclopian Shark (dunno if this is it's scientific name or the actual name of species.)



And a front look.

All right, let´s take the examples mentioned on this thread. What practical benefits are there to having one eye, or seeing in such a narrow way? I have always beleive that two eyes give the most depth perception and visual acuity. What does a creature one eye alone accomplish what so many species do with two?

Thus far, there have been no actual living animals mentioned on this thread.

The one photo shown is not proof.. it could be a mutation, or it could be photoshop.. I need to see species and genus

Did some more research into it and found out that it was a mutation. The shark depicted was a dusky shark embryo with the cyclopia mutation. Its mother was a healthy dusky shark with no mutations of her own. What I find very interesting that the shark is also albino. Two different gene mutations in the same creature.

Granted, it´s better to have two eyes. Our field of vision and depth perception is certainly very complete and arachnids with multiple eyes can see even better and more. However if there were creatures with one eyed vision, what would be the ups and downs of it?

May we please continue this discussion?