Above, Lars Schmitz, a pro­fes­sor at Clare­mont McKen­na Col­lege, guides us “through a giant tree of life map­ping the evo­lu­tion of eyes in the ani­mal king­dom: how they work, why they’ve tak­en the form they have, and the evo­lu­tion­ary advan­tages they’ve unlocked across species.” The video comes cour­tesy of Wired. It’s 36 min­utes and down­right fas­ci­nat­ing.

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Relat­ed Con­tent 

Ani­mals Laugh Too: UCLA Study Finds Laugh­ter in 65 Species, from Rats to Cows

16,000 Pages of Charles Darwin’s Writ­ing on Evo­lu­tion Now Dig­i­tized and Avail­able Online

Carl Sagan Explains Evo­lu­tion in an 8‑Minute Ani­ma­tion

Free Online Biol­o­gy Cours­es