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Mantis Shrimp Vision Reveals New Animal Sight


As if animal vision weren’t creepy enough, a new way to see has been discovered. This vision may even be used as a form of communication among the Mantis Shrimp. Not to be mistaken for an insect like the Praying Mantis, that is so often just raoming around your yard and seen randomly on a pool chair, or grill cover.

Mantis shrimp can see the world in a way that had never been observed in any animal before, researchers report in the March 20th Current Biology, a Cell Press publication. The discovery–which marks the fourth type of visual system–suggests that the ability to perceive circular polarized light may lend mantis shrimp a secret mode of communication.

“Mantis shrimp ventured into a new dimension of vision,” said Justin Marshall of the University of Queensland in Australia. Also known as stomatopods, mantis shrimp are large and particularly violent marine crustaceans that aren’t actually a kind of shrimp but look something like one.

“It’s complicated physics,” Marshall said, “but that makes it all the more amazing that some animals would use it for something.” Using it required the stomatopods to evolve a kind of filter in their eyes oriented at a precise 45 degree angle to photoreceptors underneath that pick up on linearly polarized light. The filter turns the circularly polarized light into its linear form. Many animals make use of linearly polarized light, Marshall said. To people, however, it is only glare, hence the need for polarized sun glasses.

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  • One Response to “Mantis Shrimp Vision Reveals New Animal Sight”

    1. MyAvatars 0.2

      That is bizarre. It is interesting to see all the discoveries about creatures here on earth. There are some crazy creatures. Which makes me wonder about other planets. It is mind-boggling to think about.

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