Abstract
Ants are unusual among insects in that individuals of the same species within a single colony have different modes of locomotion and tasks. We know from walking ants that vision plays a significant role in guiding this behaviour, but we know surprisingly little about the potential contribution of visual sensory structures for a flying mode of locomotion. Here we investigate the structure of the compound eye and ocelli in pedestrian workers, alate females and alate males of an Australian ant, Camponotus consobrinus, and discuss the trade-offs involved in optical sensitivity and spatial resolution. Male ants have more but smaller ommatidia and the smallest interommatidial angles, which is most likely an adaptation to visually track individual flying females. Both walking and flying forms of ants have a similar proportion of specialized receptors sensitive to polarized skylight, but the absolute number of these receptors varies, being greatest in males. Ocelli are present only in the flying forms. Each ocellus consists of a bipartite retina with a horizon-facing dorsal retina, which contains retinula cells with long rhabdoms, and a sky-facing ventral retina with shorter rhabdoms. We discuss the implications of these and their potential for sensing the pattern of polarized skylight.
Highlights
Division of labour is one of the defining features of eusociality with fascinating and far-reaching consequences such as the production of specialized castes physiologically and behaviourally adapted to fulfilling specific roles
The compound eyes of both pedestrian and flying forms of ants are of an apposition type[7], each eye is made of several ommatidia, with each ommatidium having its own lens, crystalline cone and photoreceptors
We have shown here that different castes within a single species have evolved unique visual adaptations, with distinct trade-offs between optical sensitivity, polarization sensitivity and spatial resolution
Summary
Division of labour is one of the defining features of eusociality with fascinating and far-reaching consequences such as the production of specialized castes physiologically and behaviourally adapted to fulfilling specific roles In ant societies, this division of labour extends beyond the type of task carried out and reproductive status, it determines the type of locomotion, pedestrian or aerial, and the kinds of visual information required by different castes. The compound eyes of worker ants are well studied in some species[1,2,3,4,5] there is surprisingly little known about the visual system of winged ants[6,7]. To analyse changes in the polarization pattern ants possess specialized photoreceptors in the dorsal rim area (DRA) of the compound eye. We study the visual system of the Australian ant, Camponotus consobrinus (Erichson), and report on the structure and variation of the compound eyes and the ocelli in the different castes (Fig. 1)
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