Exploring the visual world of fossilized and modern fungus gnat eyes (Diptera: Keroplatidae) with X-ray microtomography.

ABSTRACT: Animal eyes typically possess specialized regions for guiding different behavioural tasks within their specific visual habitat. These specializations, and evolutionary changes to them, can be crucial for understanding an animal's ecology. Here, we explore how the visual systems of some of the smallest flying insects, fungus gnats, have adapted to different types of forest habitat over time (approx. 30 Myr to today). Unravelling how behavioural, environmental and phylogenetic factors influence the evolution of visual specializations is difficult, however, because standard quantitative techniques often require fresh tissue and/or provide data in eye-centric coordinates that prevent reliable comparisons between species with different eye morphologies. Here, we quantify the visual world of thr

SUBMITTER: Taylor GJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7061697 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature