"Cousin Ricky" <ric### [at] yahoocom> wrote:
> In addition, praying mantises (at least the big green species) _appear_ to have
> a tiny black pupil in their compound eyes.  This is obviously an optical
> illusion of some sort, but I've seen it in many images and videos.

I never thought about this before, but when I wrote my post, I wondered, "how
can they see if their eyes are covered by opaque green stuff?"

Heh, the answer is quite simple, and is also the explanation to that optical
illusion: Insect eyes are built from tiny facets, each of which receives only
light from a particular direction. Likewise, you can only look "into" a facet
from this very direction. From any other direction, all you will see is
structures that prevent light from entering into the facet - by absorbing the
light, and/or scattering it back outside. In case of the mantis, these are
obviously of the same color as the rest of the insect's body (though that's not
necessarily the case for all insects; e.g. some flies have distinctively red
eyes though their bodies may be brown or black otherwise).

In POV terms, this screams "aoi pattern" (needs MegaPOV though).

Post a reply to this message