Electrical responses and photopigments of twin cones in the retina of the walleye.

1. The properties of twin and single cones in the retina of the walleye (Stizostedion vitreum vitreum) were studied by intracellular recording, dye injection and microspectrophotometry. 2. Twin cones generate hyperpolarizing responses to central illumination, can receive depolarizing influences (feed-back) from the receptive field surround, and show no detectable dye coupling when injected with Procion yellow. In seventeen of eighteen dye-injected cones, fluorescence was intense in the inner segment and undetectable or weak in the cone pedicle. 3. Both members of the twin cone contain the same photopigment in their outer segments. It absorbs maximally at about 605 nm. 4. A 533 nm green-sensitive photopigment was found in single cones. No blue-sensitive cones have been found. 5. With the exception of a modest discrepancy in the violet, the absorptance spectrum of the 605 nm photopigment of twin cones agrees closely with the action spectrum measured by intracellular recording. 6. The spectral properties established by the twin cone's photopigment are not detectably altered by the hyperpolarizing influences arising from nearby cones or by the depolarizing influences arising from the receptive field surround. 7. The twin cones of the walleye retina are thus "identical twins', both photochemically and physiologically, and seem designed to function as long-wave, spectrally univariant receptor units for colour vision. 8. The available evidence suggests that identical twin cones differ functionally from double cones and non-identical twin cones. 9. Although they outnumber single cones by about three to one in adults, identifiable twin cones were rarely observed in the cone population of retinas examined 3-5 days after birth. If walleye twin cones develop by fusion of single cones this process apparently occurs only for cones containing the 605 nm photopigment.