The World Through Insect Eyes

Insects are arthropods, have no backbone, have a segmented body and three pairs of wings. Bee (Photo: Adobe Firefly)

Annoying house-flies, blood thirsty mosquitoes, sweet stealing ants, rebellious cockroaches and weaver spiders, we are live in a world of insects. These incredible, tiny creatures play a fundamental role in the balance of nature.

Most insects have significant visual capacities but the optics for insects is incredibly different from our own so they perceive the world very differently from us.

Strange eyes: like small windows

Insect eyes do not have large lenses like human eyes. They have an arrangement of numerous tiny lenses in a hexagonal shape. Each lens acts like a tiny window. Together, they perceive the discrete elements of an image which the brain integrates to create a larger image.

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Many insects have a pixelated, panoramic view of their surroundings that ranges from 300 to 360 degrees. Whereas the human eye is like a megapixel camera and our world is colorful with a field of view of almost 210 degrees. They are blind to red and yellow hues, but they can perceive UV light. The eyesight of insects varies enormously from species to species in terms of depth perception, colour recognition, and clarity of vision as they live in different environments and have different visual requirements pertaining to food or escaping predators. Most insects have compound eyes and simple eyes called ocelli.

The ability to see color

In addition to having different kinds of lenses insects also see colors differently from humans. For example, we cannot see UV light, but bees can. This allows them to detect hidden patterns on flowers that guide them to nectar. Butterflies have even more advanced color vision being able to distinguish many shades especially in the red and green range which helps them identify the best plants for their childrens food.

Nocturnal insects such as moths, fireflies, cockroaches and some beetles have superposition compound eyes. In these eyes, the ommatidia are separated from the photoreceptors by a clear, pigment-free zone. This arrangement allows light from multiple lenses to be combined creating a brighter image in dim conditions even at night when human eyes are nearly useless.

Many insects, like bees and hoverflies also have simple eyes called ocelli. The large, bulging eyes visible on either side of the head are the compound eyes, while a closer look reveals three small simple eyes arranged in a triangle on the top of the head these are the ocelli.

(Photo: Adobe Firefly)

Finding the way with light

Another interesting trick is to see polarized light. Insects can see this kind of light, but humans cannot. It is used by bees to determine the sun direction. This light is also used by many insects, such as ants and grasshoppers, to identify one another.