Insect Vision

Insects perceive the world with many types of sense organs, including complex, image-forming eyes. Insect eyes are not constructed the same way as our eyes. They are composed of hundreds to tens of thousands of individual photoreceptor units called ommatidia, each of which samples the visual field. Integration of these images in the brains of insects allows insects to form images, although they less well resolved than the images we see. Insects can even detect aspects of the visual world that we cannot. For example, insects can detect the plane of polarized light and can use this to orient back to their nests. In this lecture we will examine how insect eyes are constructed and how insects perceive the world around them.

Powerpoint: Download Lecture

Links of Interest:

• See how the world would look if you were a bee