Abstract
Many arthropods have compound eyes, made up of numerous separate visual units or ommatidia. In apposition eyes, the ommatidia are optically isolated from each other and provide a poor photon catch because the lenses are so minute1. Much more efficient use of the eye's surface is obtained in superposition eyes, where many ommatidia cooperate to form a superimposed image on the retina1. I report here that, contrary to previous belief2, the eyes of many crabs and hermit-crabs work as superposition eyes by employing imaging optics of a conceptionally new kind. Imaging is accomplished by a remarkable combination of ordinary lenses, cylindrical lenses, parabolic mirrors and light-guides. Despite the impressive complexity of the new mechanism, it is easy to see how this parabolic superposition eye must have evolved from an ordinary apposition compound eye.
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Nilsson, DE. A new type of imaging optics in compound eyes. Nature 332, 76–78 (1988). https://doi.org/10.1038/332076a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/332076a0
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