Color vision are mixed together or diluted with white light, the number of distinguishable chromaticities can be quite high. In very low light levels, vision is scotopic: light is detected by rod cells of the retina. Rods are maximally sensitive to wavelengths near 500 nm, and play little, if any, role in colour vision. In brighter light, such as daylight, vision is photopic: light is detected by cone cells which are responsible for colour vision. Cones are sensitive to a range of wavelengths, but are most sensitive to wavelengths near 555 nm. Between these regions, mesopic vision comes into play and both
Evolution of the eye light would activate exactly the same patch of photo-sensitive cells regardless of its direction, the "cup" shape of the pit eyes allowed limited directional differentiation by changing which cells the lights would hit depending upon the light's angle. Pit eyes, which had arisen by the Cambrian period, were seen in ancient snails, and are found in some snails and other invertebrates living today, such as planaria. Planaria can slightly differentiate the direction and intensity of light because of their cup-shaped, heavily pigmented retina cells, which shield the light-sensitive cells from exposure in all directions except for the single opening for