Bee eyes: Mysterious compass for nature's flying artists!

Bee eyes: Mysterious compass for nature's flying artists!

To understand their impressive navigation skills, a research team from the University of Konstanz and the University of Ljubljana studied how honey bees' eyes work. These bees are amazingly good at flying miles from their hive and returning again and again. It is known that they use the position of the sun as a compass, even in difficult visibility conditions. An important key to this ability lies in the special structure of their eyes.

The eyes of bees, also called compound eyes, consist of thousands of small individual eyes, the ommatidia, each of which captures light and transmits it to the brain. Each ommatidium functions as an independent visual unit. Honey bees are estimated to have between 5,000 and 8,000 of these units per eye, while some bumblebee species can have as many as 17,000. This structure provides the bees with a wide field of vision and enables fast and precise motion detection.

The role of polarized light

A key aspect of the study was understanding how bees perceive polarized light. Bee eyes are able to detect large-scale polarization patterns in the sky. The upper part of your eyes specifically analyzes this polarized light, while the rest of the eye ensures that a sharp image is created. This combination of analysis and image sharpness provides a less detailed but more accurate perception of the sky.

Light-sensitive cells in bees' eyes are linked together, allowing bees to block out unimportant information and focus on the bigger picture. This is similar to how the human eye works, where pixels are grouped together in poor lighting conditions. Understanding these mechanisms could potentially influence modern technologies such as autonomous navigation. Artificial bee eyes could, for example, be used as a cost-effective addition to existing navigation systems.

Visual abilities and color preferences

In addition to their ability to detect polarized light, bees are particularly sensitive to ultraviolet light. This ability is crucial when it comes to finding nectar- and pollen-rich flowers. Bees have tetrachromatic vision, which allows them to see a wider spectrum of colors, including colors invisible to humans. Their color preferences tend to focus on blue and purple flowers.

Bees' compound eyes allow them to see the world as a mosaic of individual images, unlike humans who perceive a continuous image. This gives the insects the opportunity to orient themselves well even in poor lighting conditions. In addition, bees use visual landmarks in their environment to find their way back to their hive. They communicate through visual signals, particularly the famous waggle dance, to share information about food sources.

These findings about bees' eyes are not only fascinating, they also highlight the complexity of their visual systems and their importance for their survival. The publication of the study, which appeared in the “Biology Letters of the Royal Society Publishing”, provides exciting insights into the physiology and visual behavior of these vital insects.

Georgios Kolyfetis, a doctoral student in neurobiology at the University of Konstanz, is working intensively on these topics, supported by Dr. James Foster and Prof. Gregor Belušič, both of whom are active in research into the perception of polarized light and the physiology of the visual system of insects.