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With their highly sensitive visual systems, nocturnal insects have evolved a remarkable capacity to discriminate colors, orient themselves using faint celestial cues, fly unimpeded through a complicated habitat, and navigate to and from a nest using learned visual landmarks. Even though the compound eyes of nocturnal insects are significantly more sensitive to light than those of their closely related diurnal relatives, their photoreceptors absorb photons at very low rates in dim light, even during demanding nocturnal visual tasks. To explain this apparent paradox, it is hypothesized that the necessary bridge between retinal signaling and visual behavior is a neural strategy of spatial and temporal summation at a higher level in the visual system. Exactly where in the visual system this summation takes place, and the nature of the neural circuitry that is involved, is currently unknown but provides a promising avenue for future research.
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Explanation of films Films show the nocturnal sweat bee Megalopta genalis landing apparently effortlessly on its nest (a hollowed-out stick) upon return from its evening foraging trip in a Panamanian rainforest. This landing precision is possible despite a light intensity of around 0.006 candelas per square meter, which is only one order of magnitude brighter than starlight. Two films are provided. One shows the bee landing in real time. The other film is the same as the first but instead slowed down by a factor of 10. Films were recorded under infrared illumination using a Sony video camera operating in “night shot” mode. Films courtesy of Dr. Emily Baird. Download Video 1: Real time Megalopta genalis landing (MOV) Download Video 2: Slowed Megalopta genalis landing (MOV)