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Science 4 July 1969:
Vol. 165. no. 3888, pp. 88 - 90
DOI: 10.1126/science.165.3888.88
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Articles

Optics of Arthropod Compound Eye

Stephen R. Shaw 1

1 Gatty Marine Laboratory and Department of Natural History, University of St. Andrews, Fife, Scotland

The extent to which light can escape from one ommatidium into its neighbors in the compound eye has been examined by recording from single receptors during stimulation of single facets. In the "apposition" eye of the drone honeybee and locust, optical interaction is extremely small. In the "superposition" eye of the crayfish, more than half the light captured by the average cell gets in through neighboring facets, even when screening pigments are in the fully lightadapted position.

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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)