Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
Volume 279, Issue 1742, Pages 3482-3490Publisher
ROYAL SOC
DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2012.0475
Keywords
vision; colour; motion; compound eye; photoreceptor; opsin
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Funding
- JSPS (Japan Society for the Promotion of Science) [22570073, 21247009]
- MAFF (Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries of Japan) grant (Elucidation of biological mechanisms of photoresponse and development of advanced technologies using light) [INSECT-1101]
- CPIS (Sokendai Center for the Promotion of Integrated Sciences)
- Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research [22570073] Funding Source: KAKEN
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The eye of the Glacial Apollo butterfly, Parnassius glacialis, a 'living fossil' species of the family Papilionidae, contains three types of spectrally heterogeneous ommatidia. Electron microscopy reveals that the Apollo rhabdom is tiered. The distal tier is composed exclusively of photoreceptors expressing opsins of ultraviolet or blue-absorbing visual pigments, and the proximal tier consists of photoreceptors expressing opsins of green or red-absorbing visual pigments. This organization is unique because the distal tier of other known butterflies contains two green-sensitive photoreceptors, which probably function in improving spatial and/or motion vision. Interspecific comparison suggests that the Apollo rhabdom retains an ancestral tiered pattern with some modification to enhance its colour vision towards the long-wavelength region of the spectrum.
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