The ganglion cell layer of mammalian retina contains numerous amacrine
cells. Many belong to one type, the cholinergic starburst cell, but the
other types have not been systematically identified. Using a new method to
target sparsely represented cell types, we filled about 200 amacrine
neurons in the ganglion cell layer of the guinea pig visual streak and
identified 11 types. Ten of these resemble types identified in other
species with somas in the inner nuclear layer, but one type has not been
previously reported. Most of the types and nearly all the injected cells
(95%) arborized low in the synaptic layer where they would co-stratify
with various classes of ON ganglion cell. The displaced somas (7% of all
amacrine cells) thus represent a heterogeneous pool, which are relatively
accessible for study of their interactions with ON ganglion cells.