A new study from the University of Sheffield reveals that insects have much better vision and can see in much higher detail than previously believed, despite that typical image of compound eyes that intuitively leads us to believe that definition each of them should not be very high.
Specifically, researchers from the Department of Biomedical Sciences at the University of Sheffield, together with their collaborators from Beijing, Cambridge and Lisbon have discovered how photoreceptor cells within compound eyes react to image movement .
Compound eyes
Unlike the human eye, the thousands of tiny lenses, which form the characteristic surface of the compound eye, do not move or cannot accommodate, yet the photoreceptor cells under the lenses move quickly and automatically in and out of focus. , by showing the image of the world around them. According to Mikko Juusola , Professor of Systems Neuroscience at the University of Sheffield and lead author of the study:
Rapid visual adaptation has long been known to cause the world around us to fade from perception unless we move our eyes to cancel out this effect. On the other hand, rapid eye movements must blur vision so it has remained an enigma as photoreceptors work with eye movements to see the world clearly. Our results demonstrate that by adapting the way photoreceptor cells sample information from light to eye saccades and gaze fixations, evolution has optimized the visual perception of animals.