The visual system of the Australian 'Redeye' cicada (Psaltoda moerens)

Arthropod Structure & Development
Willi Ribi, Jochen Zeil

Abstract

We investigated the functional anatomy of the visual system in the Australian 'Redeye' cicada Psaltoda moerens, including compound eyes and ocelli. The compound eyes have large visual fields, about 7500 ommatidia per eye and binocular overlaps of 10-15° in the frontal and of 50-60° in the dorsal visual field. The diameters of corneal facet lenses range between 22 and 34 μm and the lenses are unusually long with up to 100 μm in some eye regions. In the posterior part of the eyes, the hexagonal facet array changes to a square lattice. The compound eyes are of the eucone apposition type with 8 retinular cells contributing to a fused rhabdom in each ommatidium. The red eye colour is due to the pigment granules in the secondary pigment cells. We found a small Dorsal Rim Area (DRA), in which rhabdom cross-sections are rectangular rather than round. The cross-sections of DRA rhabdoms do not systematically change orientation along the length of the rhabdom, indicating that microvilli directions do not twist, which would make retinular cells in the DRA polarization sensitive. The three ocelli have unusual lenses with a champagne-cork shape in longitudinal sections. Retinular cells are short in the dorsal and ventral part of the retinae,...Continue Reading

References

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Citations

Dec 1, 2017·The Journal of Experimental Biology·Ajay Narendra, Willi A Ribi
Mar 28, 2018·Journal of Comparative Physiology. A, Neuroethology, Sensory, Neural, and Behavioral Physiology·Willi Ribi, Jochen Zeil

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