Compound eyes

[Gretchen]

Does a mantis see a single image, or multiple images with their compound eyes? Do all mantids see the same, or does it differ depending on the species?

 

[Gretchen]

Wow, not a single answer. Somebody must know...

I would guess they see a single image, but I can't seem to find any information.

 

[Domanating]

a compound eye is made of thousands of very small eyes, each pointing to one direction since they are static. Each eye makes an image of whats in front of it. As the brain processes all the info gathered by each eye, it will create one single image by joining all the images like a puzzle. I couldn't find any simpler way to explain it.

Wikipedia is your friend:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye#Compound_eyes

 

[lunarstorm]

Not to discredit the answer but remember: Wikipedia can be a poor source of information, it's not always wise to trust a source that can be edited by anyone. Some college professors are notorious for editing a page with false information, hoping their students will fall into the trap.

Mantids were used in the 1960s to conduct research on insect vision. Their binocular determination of prey distance is pretty cool, read Karl Kral's findings on stereoscopic depth perception and motion parallax (distance calculations based on the change of visual angle due to the animal's body movement) for more info. We all notice they sway side to side and back and forth as they fixate on something.

 

[Gretchen]

Thanks for your replies.

 

[PhilinYuma]

Not to discredit lunarstorm, but a lot of exagerated hearsay is passed along about the changes made to Wikipedia pages. In order to make changes you need to give yr name, and if you deliberately put in fase information as Colbert notoriously did, your posting privileges, like his, will be suspended. I have heard the same "academic legend" stories about professors, but no one has ever named one for me and i have found no egregfious errors in my own area of expertise.

There is a very full discussion on this subject by Karl Krul in The Praying Mantids, ed Frederick R. Prete, et al, "Binocular Vision and distance Estimation",pp114-140. You may be able to Google it.

 

[meaganelise9]

I've been wondering how they work too as well as how that little light-sensing organ on the top of some heads contributes to vision.

Here's all I've found:

http://www.theprayingmantis.org/Mantis-Eyes.php

http://jeb.biologists.org/content/120/1/265.full.pdf

This one talks about the "pseudopupil" briefly, which is what I was curious about.

http://www.callanbentley.com/writing/wild_williamsburg/ww_mantis.htm

And here is the googling of what PhilinYuma mentioned above:

http://books.google.com/books?id=DpQtuB-EVSUC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Frederick+R.+Prete+the+praying+mantids&hl=en&ei=7n2bTq7OIoatsAL4xMzMBA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CDUQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false

 

[Gretchen]

Thanks for the info. That's some interesting reading Meaganelise!