Some recent references on the genetics and evolution of color vision


Yokoyama, S.  1996.  Molecular evolution of retinal and nonretinal opsins.  Genes to Cells
 1:  787-794.

Yokoyama, S. and R. Yokoyama.  1996.  Evolution of photoreceptor cells and visual 
pigments.  Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics  27:  543--567.

Nei, M, J. Zhang, and S. Yokoyama.  1997.  Color vision of ancestral organisms of 
higher primates.  Molecular Biology and Evolution  14:  611-618.

Yokoyama, S.  (1997).  Molecular basis of adaptive selection: Examples from color vision 
in vertebrates.  Annual Reviews of Genetics.

A nice recent review on the more general question of the
evolution of the eye itself is

Gehring, W., and K. Ikeo.  1999.  Pax 6:  masting eye morphogenesis and
eye evolution.  Trends in Genetics 15: 371-377 (Sept. issue).