In this concept paper, three scenarios are described in which animals make
use of polarized light: the underwater world, the water surface and the ter
restrial habitat vaulted by the pattern of polarized light in the sky. With
in these various visual environments, polarized light is used in a number o
f ways that make quite different demands on the neural circuitries mediatin
g these different types of behaviour. Apart from some common receptor and p
re-processing mechanisms, the underlying neural mechanisms may differ accor
dingly. Often, information about chi (the angle of polarization), d (the de
gree of polarization) and lambda (the spectral content) might not - and nee
d not - be disentangled. Hence, the hypothesis entertained in this account
is that polarization vision comes in various guises, and that the answer to
the question posed in the title is most probably no.