Scientists studying children of the Moken tribe, an island-based people who live by diving to retrieve objects from the sea, believe the children have evolved the ability to see more clearly underwater.

Swedish scientists studying the diving abilities of Moken children carried out a series of tests which demonstrated that they are able to see underwater twice as clearly as European children. This is achieved by shrinking the pupil of the eye while underwater to help correct the blurriness of vision.

The Moken - a stateless tribe living between groups of islands off the coasts of Burma and Thailand - appear to have evolved the ability to close the aperture of the eye's pupil to less than 2mm. The best result achieved by European children was 2.5mm.

The tests were carried out using children between 8 and 13 years old, and both Moken and European children were asked to identify black strips on submerged test panels. The Moken children were able to identify twice as many strips.

Early research into whether the pupil response is the reult of learned behaviour suggests that while training can produce an improvement in performance, European children cannot achieve the same level of underwater vision as Moken children.

Lead scientist Anna Gislen has published the research in the journal of Current Biology.


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