Lack of Optomotor Reactions in a White-eyed Mutant of Culex molestus

Abstract

THE white-eyed mutant of Culex molestus1, recently detected in the Department of Entomology in the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, made it possible to repeat experiments performed on normal and white-eyed individuals of Drosophila melanogaster, D. pseudoobscura2 and (unpublished) D. subobscura; in these experiments it was shown that the pigments normally separating the individual ommatidia in the compound eye are necessary for the perception of moving contours and that white-eyed individuals, regardless of genetical constitution, do not show optomotor reactions.