Extraocular ectoderm triggers dorsal retinal fate during optic vesicle evagination in zebrafish

► Early optic vesicle cells expressing dorsal markers contribute to dorsal retina. ► Bmps are required for initiating dorsal fate prior to bmp expression in retina. ► Two bmps are required for dorsal retinal fate initiation, acting extraocularly. ► Extraocular bmp2b is required, acting upstream of gdf6a in dorsal retina initiation. ► Our work defines a basic mechanism for retinal patterning using extraocular signals.