Circular Polarization Vision of Scarab Beetles

Stomatopod crustaceans have the most complex and diverse assortment of retinal photoreceptors of any animals, with 16 functional classes. The receptor classes are subdivided into sets responsible for ultraviolet vision, spatial vision, colour vision and polarization vision. Many of these receptor classes are spectrally tuned by filtering pigments located in photoreceptors or overlying optical elements. At visible wavelengths, carotenoproteins or similar substances are packed into vesicles used either as serial, intrarhabdomal filters or lateral filters. A single retina may contain a diversity of these filtering pigments paired with specific photoreceptors, and the pigments used vary between and within species both taxonomically and ecologically. Ultraviolet-filtering pigments in the crystalline cones serve to tune ultraviolet vision in these animals as well, and some ultraviolet receptors themselves act as birefringent filters to enable circular polarization vision. Stomatopods have reached an evolutionary extreme in their use of filter mechanisms to tune photoreception to habitat and behaviour, allowing them to extend the spectral range of their vision both deeper into the ultraviolet and further into the red.

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Circular polarization vision in stomatopod crustaceans

10.14264/uql.2018.87 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Rachel Templin

Keyword(s):

Circular Polarization ◽

Polarization Vision

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The Optics of Linear and Circular Polarization Vision: Recent Discoveries in Fish and Stomatopods

Frontiers in Optics 2011/Laser Science XXVII ◽

10.1364/fio.2011.fwv2 ◽

2011 ◽

Author(s):

Nicholas Roberts

Keyword(s):

Circular Polarization ◽

Polarization Vision

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Circular Polarization Vision in a Stomatopod Crustacean

Current Biology ◽

10.1016/j.cub.2008.02.066 ◽

2008 ◽

Vol 18 (6) ◽

pp. 429-434 ◽

Cited By ~ 165

Author(s):

Tsyr-Huei Chiou ◽

Sonja Kleinlogel ◽

Tom Cronin ◽

Roy Caldwell ◽

Birte Loeffler ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Circular Polarization ◽

Polarization Vision

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Neural processing of linearly and circularly polarized light signal in a mantis shrimp Haptosquilla pulchella

Journal of Experimental Biology ◽

10.1242/jeb.219832 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 223 (22) ◽

pp. jeb219832

Author(s):

Tsyr-Huei Chiou ◽

Ching-Wen Wang

Keyword(s):

Circular Polarization ◽

Linear Polarization ◽

Polarized Light ◽

Polarization Vision ◽

Animal Group ◽

Circularly Polarized Light ◽

Circularly Polarized ◽

Mantis Shrimp ◽

Linearly Polarized ◽

Vector Angle

ABSTRACTStomatopods, or mantis shrimp, are the only animal group known to possess circular polarization vision along with linear polarization vision. By using the rhabdomere of a distally located photoreceptor as a wave retarder, the eyes of mantis shrimp are able to convert circularly polarized light into linearly polarized light. As a result, their circular polarization vision is based on the linearly polarized light-sensitive photoreceptors commonly found in many arthropods. To investigate how linearly and circularly polarized light signals might be processed, we presented a dynamic polarized light stimulus while recording from photoreceptors or lamina neurons in intact mantis shrimp Haptosquilla pulchella. The results indicate that all the circularly polarized light-sensitive photoreceptors also showed differential responses to the changing e-vector angle of linearly polarized light. When stimulated with linearly polarized light of varying e-vector angle, most photoreceptors produced a concordant sinusoidal response. In contrast, some lamina neurons doubled the response frequency in reacting to linearly polarized light. These responses resembled a rectified sum of two-channel linear polarization-sensitive photoreceptors, indicating that polarization visual signals are processed at or before the first optic lobe. Noticeably, within the lamina, there was one type of neuron that showed a steady depolarization response to all stimuli except right-handed circularly polarized light. Together, our findings suggest that, between the photoreceptors and lamina neurons, linearly and circularly polarized light may be processed in parallel and differently from one another.

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