Opening the Third Eye

Senses are crucial for navigating the world, but not all animals perceive their environments in the same way. A few living reptiles, like some lizards and the tuatara of New Zealand, possess a special sensory structure on the top of their heads that acts like a third eye, allowing them to better regulate their body temperature.

Yale Ph.D. candidate Kelsey Jenkins offers a brief evolutionary history of this fascinating organ, and details how paleontologists use the fossil record to determine how extinct animals sensed the world around them.