Merry Justin W, Morehouse Nathan I, Yturralde Kasey, Rutowski Ronald L
School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University, P.O. Box 874601, Tempe, AZ 85287-4601, USA.
J Insect Physiol. 2006 Mar;52(3):240-8. doi: 10.1016/j.jinsphys.2005.11.002. Epub 2005 Dec 19.
Sensory information plays a critical role in determining an animal's behavior on both proximate and evolutionary timescales. Butterflies, like many other insects, use vision extensively over their lifetimes, and yet relatively little work has been published to date on their visual capabilities. We describe the visual system of a pierid butterfly, Colias eurytheme, with the ultimate goal of better understanding its role in shaping the behavior of this animal. We made several measurements: visual field dimensions, eye surface area, interommatidial angle (Deltaphi), facet diameter (D), and eye parameter (p). C. eurytheme had a large visual field and considerable regional variation in visual acuity, as inferred by Deltaphi and D. When compared to females, males had larger eye surface areas, smaller Deltaphi, and larger D in all regions except ventrally. Both sexes had proportionally large eye surface areas compared to other butterflies. Minimum p in males was small, indicating that some regions of their eyes may operate close to the diffraction limit. Finally, we found that both eye surface area and D scaled positively, but with negative allometry to body size. We discuss the relevance of these visual characteristics to the biology and behavior of C. eurytheme.
感觉信息在决定动物在近期和进化时间尺度上的行为方面起着关键作用。蝴蝶和许多其他昆虫一样，在其一生中广泛使用视觉，然而迄今为止，关于它们视觉能力的研究相对较少。我们描述了粉蝶科蝴蝶——优斑蛱蝶（Colias eurytheme）的视觉系统，其最终目标是更好地理解视觉系统在塑造这种动物行为中的作用。我们进行了多项测量：视野维度、眼表面积、小眼间角（Δφ）、小眼直径（D）和眼睛参数（p）。根据Δφ和D推断，优斑蛱蝶具有较大的视野，且视力在区域上有相当大的差异。与雌性相比，雄性在除腹侧外的所有区域都有更大的眼表面积、更小的Δφ和更大的D。与其他蝴蝶相比，两性的眼表面积都相对较大。雄性的最小p值较小，表明它们眼睛的某些区域可能接近衍射极限工作。最后，我们发现眼表面积和D都呈正相关，但与体型呈负异速生长关系。我们讨论了这些视觉特征与优斑蛱蝶生物学和行为的相关性。
