Animal opsins are G-protein-coupled receptors and a group of proteins made light-sensitive via a chromophore, typically retinal. When bound to retinal, opsins become retinylidene proteins, but are usually still called opsins regardless. Most prominently, they are found in photoreceptor cells of the retina. Five classical groups of opsins are involved in vision, mediating the conversion of a photon of light into an electrochemical signal, the first step in the visual transduction cascade. Another opsin found in the mammalian retina, melanopsin, is involved in circadian rhythms and pupillary reflex but not in vision. Humans have in total nine opsins. Beside vision and light perception, opsins may also sense temperature, sound, or chemicals.

Animal opsins are molecules that absorb light from the environment to allow for vision in animals. Opsins are G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs), which are chemoreceptors and have seven transmembrane domains forming a binding pocket for a ligand. The ligand for opsins is the vitamin A-based chromophore 11-cis-retinal, which is covalently bound to a lysine residue in the seventh transmembrane domain through a Schiff-base. However, 11-cis-retinal only blocks the binding pocket and does not activate the opsin. The opsin is only activated when 11-cis-retinal absorbs a photon of light and isomerizes to all-trans-retinal, the receptor activating form, causing conformal changes in the opsin, which activate a phototransduction cascade. Thus, a chemoreceptor is converted to a light or photo(n)receptor.

In the vertebrate photoreceptor cells, all-trans-retinal is released and replaced by a newly synthesized 11-cis-retinal provided from the retinal epithelial cells. Beside 11-cis-retinal (A1), 11-cis-3,4-didehydroretinal (A2) is also found in vertebrates as ligand such as in freshwater fishes. A2-bound opsins have a shifted λ_max and absorption spectrum compared to A1-bound opsins.

The seven transmembrane α-helical domains in opsins are connected by three extra-cellular and three cytoplasmic loops. Along the α-helices and the loops, many amino acid residues are highly conserved between all opsin groups, indicating that they serve important functions and thus are called functionally conserved residues. Actually, insertions and deletions in the α-helices are very rare and should preferentially occur in the loops. Therefore, different G-protein-coupled receptors have different length and homologous residues may be in different positions. To make such positions comparable between different receptors, Ballesteros and Weinstein introduced a common numbering scheme for G-protein-coupled receptors. The number before the period is the number of the transmembrane domain. The number after the period is set arbitrarily to 50 for the most conserved residue in that transmembrane domain among GPCRs known in 1995. For instance in the seventh transmembrane domain, the proline in the highly conserved NPxxY^7.53 motif is Pro^7.50, the asparagine before is then Asp^7.49, and the tyrosine three residues after is then Tyr^7.53. Another numbering scheme is based on cattle rhodopsin. Cattle rhodopsin has 348 amino acids and is the first opsin whose amino acid sequence and whose 3D-structure were determined. The cattle rhodopsin numbering scheme is widespread in the opsin literature. Therefore, it is useful to use both schemes.

Opsins without the retinal binding lysine are not light sensitive. In cattle rhodopsin, this lysine is the 296th amino acid and thus according to both numbering schemes Lys296^7.43. It is well conserved among opsins, so well conserved that sequences without it were not even considered opsins and thus excluded from large scale phylogenetic reconstructions. Even so, most opsins have Lys296^7.43, some have lost it during evolution: In the nemopsins from nematodes, Lys296^7.43 is replaced by Arginine. In the astropsins from sea urchins and in the gluopsins, Lys296^7.43 is replaced by glutamic acid. A nemopsin is expressed in chemosensory cells in Caenorhabditis elegans. Therefore, the nemopsins are thought to be chemoreceptors. The gluopsins are found in insects such as beetles, scorpionflies, dragonflies, and butterflies and moths including model organisms such as the silk moth and the tobacco hawk moth. However, the gluopsins have no known function.

Such function does not need to be light detection, as some opsins are also involved in thermosensation, mechanoreception such as hearing detecting phospholipids, chemosensation, and other functions. In particular, the Drosophila rhabdomeric opsins (rhabopsins, r-opsins) Rh1, Rh4, and Rh7 function not only as photoreceptors, but also as chemoreceptors for aristolochic acid. These opsins still have Lys296^7.43 like other opsins. However, if this lysine is replaced by an arginine in Rh1, then Rh1 loses light sensitivity but still responds to aristolochic acid. Thus, Lys296^7.43 is not needed for Rh1 to function as chemoreceptor. Also the Drosophila rhabopsins Rh1 and Rh6 are involved in mechanoreception, again for mechanoreception Lys296^7.43 is not needed, but needed for proper function in the photoreceptor cells.

Beside these functions, an opsin without Lys296^7.43, such as a gluopsin, could still be light sensitive, since in cattle rhodopsin, the retinal binding lysine can be shifted from position 296 to other positions, even into other transmembrane domains, without changing light sensitivity.

In the phylogeny above, each clade contains sequences from opsins and other G protein-coupled receptors. The number of sequences and two pie charts are shown next to the clade. The first pie chart shows the percentage of a certain amino acid at the position in the sequences corresponding Lys296^7.43 in cattle rhodopsin. The amino acids are color-coded. The colors are red for lysine (K), purple for glutamic acid (E), orange for argenine (R), dark and mid-gray for other amino acids, and light gray for sequences that have no data at that position. The second pie chart gives the taxon composition for each clade, green stands for craniates, dark green for cephalochordates, mid green for echinoderms, brown for nematodes, pale pink for annelids, dark blue for arthropods, light blue for mollusks, and purple for cnidarians. The branches to the clades have pie charts, which give support values for the branches. The values are from right to left SH-aLRT/aBayes/UFBoot. The branches are considered supported when SH-aLRT ≥ 80%, aBayes ≥ 0.95, and UFBoot ≥ 95%. If a support value is above its threshold the pie chart is black otherwise gray.