Polarization vision - A uniform sensory capacity?

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.