compound eye

The type of eye comonly found in arthropods, including

many insects and crustacea. A compound eye has a
meshlike appearance because it consists of hundreds or
thousands of tiny lens-capped optical units called
ommatidia. Each ommatidium has its own cornea, lens,
and photoreceptor cells for distinguishing brightness and
color. Individual ommatidia guide light through a lens and
cone into a channel, known as a rhabdom, which contains
light-sensitive cells. These are connected to optical nerve
cells to produce the image. The
ommatidia are seperated from each
other by varying degrees of pigment.

The ommatidia are packed side by

side into bulges that create a wide
field of view. As each unit is
orientated in a slightly different
direction, the honeycombed eye
creates a mosaic image which,
although poor at picking out detail, is Compound eye of
excellent at detecting movement. the fruit fly,
Drosophila
melanogaster
Credit: J. Kumar,
The two main kinds of
Indiana University
compound eyes:
According to the structure of a compound eye, and the
way pigment is distributed between the ommatidia, the
eye can form either apposition images or superposition
images. In the case of an apposition eye, each
ommatidium focuses only rays that are almost parallel to
its long axis, so that each forms an image of only a very
small part of the visual field. The image of the whole
results from a combination of these part images.

In the case of a superposition eye, the sensory cells of an

ommatidium can pick up light from a large part of the
visual field so that the image received may overlap those
received by as many as 30 neighboring ommatidia. The
superposition image thus gains in brightness but loses in
sharpness compared with the apposition image.

Diurnal insects have apposition eyes, whereas nocturnal

insects have superposition eyes. However, there are
many intermediate grades and, in some animals, one type
of eye may change temporarily into the other by
movement of pigment between the ommatidia to allow
adaptation to the dark.

Surprising facts
A dragonfly has 30,000
Structure of a compound eye. ommatidia in each eye.
Image courtesy of BioMEDIA ASSOCIATES
 The body of
Ophiocoma wendtii, a type
of brittle star, is covered
How good are compound with ommatidia, turning its
eyes? whole skin into a
compound eye!
Compared with single-aperture
eyes, such as the human eye,  Compound eyes first
compound eyes have poor appeared on Earth more
than 500 million years ago.
We know this because they
can be seen on fossil
trilobites of this age.
 resolution so they are not good at making out detail. On
the other hand, compound eyes have a very large angle of
view and the ability to detect fast movement and, in some
cases, the polarization of light. Insects that can fly well,
such as honey bees and flies, or that catch prey, such as
dragonflies or preying mantis, have specialized zones of
ommatidia. These zones are organized into a fovea area
that gives acute vision. In the acute zone, the eye is
flattened and the facets are larger, which allows more
ommatidia to receive light from a spot and thereby achieve
.higher resolution

Compound eyes generally allow only a short range of

vision. For example, flies and mosquitoes can see only a
few millimeters in front of them with any degree of
resolution, although within this short range they can see
.detail that we could see only with a microscope

Dragonflies have one of the most elaborate eyes of any

insect, capable of pinpointing the motion of a small prey
insect several meters away, even his while the dragonfly
is traveling fast. Butterflies have color vision that is more
enhanced than our own, enabling them to locate food from
flowers. Honey bees can see in ultraviolet, which allows
them to perceive patterns on nectar-laden flowers that are
invisible to us. Many insects, including bees, can also
.detectpolarized light, which they use in navigation

The bee also uses compound eyes, but cannot see the
color red. Their visual world is mostly made up of yellow,
green, and blue. They can, however, see the ultraviolet
spectrum. Honeybees also have three additional eyes
called "ocelli" that can't make out images, but are sensitive
to light.
Insect Vision:

Most insects use compound eyes, made up of hundreds

or even thousands of tiny lenses placed together in a
honeycomb pattern. Contrary to popular belief, the insect
does not see hundreds of copies of the same image at
once. Rather, each lens makes up a small part of the
overall picture, similar to a mosiac or jigsaw puzzle. One
compound eye can have from 10 to 30,000 sections,
depending on the insect. Dragonflies and Praying
Mantises can have the most sections, up to 30,000. Color
perception can vary greatly, as well. Some insects such
as butterflies can see far more colors than us, while others
see far fewer.

Mechanism of vision by compound eye :

1. During the day or In the bright light :

In the bright light during the day time the pigment spread in
such away that they completely separate optically on
ommatidium from the adjacent ommatidia . in this condition
rays of light which strikes the cornea obliquely are absorbed by
the pigment cells therefore they can not produce a visual effect
only those rays of light which pass directly through the center
of the cornea can travel through the ommatidium and reach the
rhabdometo form an image of apart of an object these small
parts placed to gether from the image of the entire object this is
known as a mosaic vision and such an image is called an
apposition image the sharpness of the image depends on the
number of ommatidia involved and the degree of there isolation
from one another the larger number of ommatidia and more
complete their isolationfrom one another the sharper the image.

2. during the weak light:

in the weak light the pigment cells migrate towards the distal
and basal parts of the ommatidia and the nieghbouring
ommatidia work in unsion in this condition even the oblique
rays are cabable of forming a point of the image after passing
through a number of ommatidia as a result an overlapping of
the adjacent points of the image takes place and thus
continuous image is formed such an image is called super
position image in this case the vision is not distinct but the
animal is able to have some sort of idea of it's surrounding
objects.