Drugfly 's eyes sit motionless on their heads, unable to rotate separately. Instead, insects move their retina to observe their surroundings, track moving objects, or accurately judge their distance.
red fluorescent marker shows muscle fibers that move the retina in the eyes of fruit fly, green - motor neurons that drive them
Unlike us, the eyes of fly cannot move independently of the head. At the same time, this ability is extremely important and useful. It allows you to track the movement of objects and constantly “patch together” the environment due to tiny and imperceptible motion (micro-jump). Therefore, some other animals with fixed eyes, such as spider , will rotate the retina. Rockefeller University (US) scientists found the same trait in fruit flies. Their paper has been published in the journal Natural 《》.
Gaby Maimon and her colleagues used fluorescent markers attached to Drosophila muscle cells. This shows that in the eyes of these insects, there is a pair of fibers that allow you to move your retina back and forth. When scientists place fruit flies in front of a panoramic screen and secure their heads to rest motion, these fibers activate and move the retina to track the shapes moving on the screen.
When still pictures are displayed to fruit flies, the experiment also demonstrates the saccade motion of the retina. Obviously, this increases the resolution of their vision. The same situation is also shown in the experiment on the "treadmill".
Insects are placed on such a setting with small obstacles, and each time they approach one of them, the flies gather their retina together, guiding them to a point, just like the strabismus patient. If fruit flies that artificially hinder retinal movement are used at the same time, they will be difficult to overcome the obstacle. Most likely, the ability to put them together allows you to estimate the distance to an object more accurately.
