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The amount of rod and cone cells in your eye fill all available space. Introducing an IR sensitive cell type would take away space from existing cells, limiting their usefulness. Having night vision would mean sacrificing something else. IR frequencies would also require larger sensor cells due to their larger wavelength.

As a side note, men generally have a higher ratio of rod cells, allowing them to see in the dark. While women have a higher ratio of cone cells, allowing them to better distinguish colors. Apparently, these tradeoffs were important enough to cause for specialization in our DNA.



> fill all available space

Couldn't we have evolved physically larger eyes to accommodate additional "visual apparatus" though?


Yes, but you will find a similar analogy here. Balancing tradeoffs is a central feature of evolution.


People with tetrachromacy have 4 cones Don’t know if that extra color perception, negatively influence other aspects of their vision


Also a lot of the IR spectrum is absorbed by water, so it wouldn't pass through the eyeball.




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