Physiological properties of the visual system in the Green Weaver ant, Oecophylla smaragdina
Ogawa, Yuri, Jones, Lochlan, Ryan, Laura A., Robson, Simon K.A., Hart, Natha S., and Narendra, Ajay (2023) Physiological properties of the visual system in the Green Weaver ant, Oecophylla smaragdina. Journal of Comparative Physiology A: Neuroethology, Sensory, Neural, and Behavioral Physiology, 209. pp. 489-498.
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Abstract
The Green Weaver ants, Oecophylla smaragdina are iconic animals known for their extreme cooperative behaviour where they bridge gaps by linking to each other to build living chains. They are visually oriented animals, build chains towards closer targets, use celestial compass cues for navigation and are visual predators. Here, we describe their visual sensory capacity. The major workers of O. smaragdina have more ommatidia (804) in each eye compared to minor workers (508), but the facet diameters are comparable between both castes. We measured the impulse responses of the compound eye and found their response duration (42 ms) was similar to that seen in other slow-moving ants. We determined the flicker fusion frequency of the compound eye at the brightest light intensity to be 132 Hz, which is relatively fast for a walking insect suggesting the visual system is well suited for a diurnal lifestyle. Using pattern-electroretinography we identified the compound eye has a spatial resolving power of 0.5 cycles deg−1 and reached peak contrast sensitivity of 2.9 (35% Michelson contrast threshold) at 0.05 cycles deg−1. We discuss the relationship of spatial resolution and contrast sensitivity, with number of ommatidia and size of the lens.
| Item ID: | 79074 |
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| Item Type: | Article (Research - C1) |
| ISSN: | 1432-1351 |
| Keywords: | Compound eye, Contrast sensitivity, Spatial acuity, Spatial resolving power, Vision |
| Copyright Information: | This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
| Date Deposited: | 03 Jan 2024 01:14 |
| FoR Codes: | 31 BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES > 3109 Zoology > 310910 Animal physiology - systems @ 100% |
| SEO Codes: | 28 EXPANDING KNOWLEDGE > 2801 Expanding knowledge > 280102 Expanding knowledge in the biological sciences @ 100% |
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