Compound Eyes of Insects

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fly eyes, flies eyes, compound eyes, insect vision, insect anatomy, ommatidia
Compound eyes consist of numerous ommatidia.

Most insects have compound eyes, which upon closer inspection have many an array tiny lenses. They are the most visible part of the subunits of the compound eyes known as ommatidia. Each ommatidium comprises of the lens, light gathering unit and light absorbing cells.

drafonflies eyes, compound eyes, compound eyes of insects, ommatidia, insect eye structure
A dragonfly's compound eyes can have thousands of ommatidia.

Because the lens is not flexible like ours, an insect cannot focus properly resulting in less detailed view of their surroundings. However, an insect vision is very efficient when it comes to detecting movement. As an object moves across their field of vision, it turns each corresponding ommatidia on and off making them highly sensitive to movement. This adaptation of the insect eyes is important because it helps insects evade predators, hunt potential prey and avoid collision when flying.

fly, predator insect, compound eyes, rainforest insects
Compound eyes help this fly catches its prey.

The numbers of ommatidia varies among insects. Generally, greater numbers of ommatidia correlate with sharper image. Thus, a dragonfly eyes with up to 20,000 ommatidia in each compound eye is capable of distinguishing greater amount of detail than a honeybee that has lesser number of ommatidia.

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