Praying Mantises Wearing 3D Glasses Help Us Understand Insect Vision

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Praying mantises are badass hunters. Although famed for their ability to catch prey many times heavier than themselves, theres not much research on the efficiencyof mantisvision, or indeed on insect sight in general.

To help see the world through the eyes of an insect, scientists have been giving praying mantises 3D glasses to see if they are capable of stereopsis the ability to perceive depth and view the world inthreedimensionsand if this is what makesmantises such effective predators. Along with this, the findings from these funky bugs hopeto help develop depth-perception sight in robots.

The study conducted at Newcastle University had its findings published in Nature thisweek.

Using beeswax to attachthe glasses, they fitted thepraying mantiseswith two separate 7-milimeterblue and green lenses. They didnt use the more iconic red and blue lenses were probably more used to, as red light is poorly visible to mantises.

The insects were then placed into their very own 3D insect cinema. Upon the screenthey played swirling imagesdesigned to provoke theminto thinking there was prey up for grabs.

Acting as ifthey were amid a real hunt, whenwearing the 3D glasses the mantisesbelieved the stimulus was prey and begun to strike at the LED screen. When they werent wearing the lenses and were confronted with the 2D stimulus, they didnt bother to attack the screen. These findings neatlyshow thatsome insects can see in 3D andpraying mantises heavily rely on three-dimensional vision to survive.

“Despite their minute brains, mantises are sophisticated visual hunters which can capture prey with terrifying efficiency,” said study leader Jenny Readin a press release. “We can learn a lot by studying how they perceive the world.”

“Better understanding of their simpler processing systems helps us understand how 3D vision evolved, and could lead to possible new algorithms for 3D depth perception in computers”.

Read more: http://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/praying-mantises-wearing-3d-glasses-help-understand-insect-vision

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