Flight Orientation Research Articles

Melting, ablation, and vapor phase condensation during atmospheric passage of the Bjurbole meteorite

A detailed study of the Bjurbole fusion crust using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersive analysis (EDS) shows that filamentary crystals and ablation spheres may form on the meteoroid surface. Filamentary crystals, hollow spheres, and porous regions of the surface point to a period of intense vapor phase activity during atmospheric passage. Filamentary crystals can be divided into three categories on the basis of bulk composition and morphology. Two types of filamentary crystals are vapor phase condensation products formed during atmospheric entry of the meteoroid. The other type forms by the interaction of seawater with the fusion surface. The density and composition of ablation spheres varies with the flight orientation of the meteorite. The size range and composition of iron‐nickel spheres on the surface of Bjurbole are similar to spheres collected in the stratosphere. A comparison of stratospheric dust collections with meteorite surfaces may provide further insight into the mechanisms of meteoroid entry into planetary atmospheres.

The effects of the antennal flight posture and orientation on the pheromonal stimulation patterns experienced by male Spodoptera littoralis (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae)

The effects of the antennal flight posture and orientation on the pheromonal stimulation patterns experienced by male <i>Spodoptera littoralis</i> (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae)

Rapid dendritic spine stem shortening during one-trial learning: The honeybee's first orientation flight

Our initial study of honeybees using the rapid Golgi method showed that dendritic spines on calycal interneurons had shorter stems due to spine head enlargement in bees with greater cumulative experience. This study sought to determine if spine stem shortening could be induced rapidly the first orientation flight, a one-trial place learning event. Newly emerged bees were reared in a small broodless hive with a virgin queen and allowed to take their first orientation flight at 6 and 8 days of age. Spine profiles of 5 flyers and 5 non-flyers were traced in large scale using light microscopy and a modified camera lucida. Overall spine length and stem length were measured on these tracings using a digitizing tablet. Additional measurements of maximum spine head width, profile area, and perimeter were made using computer image analyses. Examining group differences in spine length as a function of overall spine length, our results revealed a clear association between rapid spine stem shortening and the first orientation flight lasting several minutes. This effect, however, was restricted to only the long spines. Flight-induced stem shortening was accompanied by elongated swelling of the spine head without an appreciable expansion of the spine perimeter.

Luminance dependence of pigment color discrimination in bees

1. A system is described in which a behavioral test is used to match color shades to an arbitrarily chosen level to the compound of brightness and saturation. This system was used with honeybees (Apis mellifera carnica) to develop a series of color marks which were equal to the compound of brightness and color saturation to bees. 2. Freely flying honeybees were trained to a blue color mark on a vertical screen. Discrimination of this blue color from violet, green, blue-green and yellow was tested at various natural luminances. In the majority of the experiments the background screen was painted achromatic grey of the same luminosity as the color marks. Two training procedures were used: one utilized a feeding station, the other the hive entrance. 3. Bees discriminate colors best at luminances between 101 and 102 cd/m2. Color discrimination is less acute at both higher and lower luminance levels; these deficits at high and low luminances have been termed the bright light and dim light effects, respectively. Color discrimination disappears below 10−1 cd/m2 (Fig. 6). The dependence of color discrimination on available light is the same in both the violet and blue-green regions. 4. It is concluded that bees have achromatic vision at low light levels (<10−1 cd/m2), and that they can use this achromatic vision during extreme low light situations — even during flight orientation. The bright light effect is discussed with respect to results from single unit electrophysiological recording experiments and appears to result from the specific behavior of light adaptation in the retinula cell — monopolar cell system. The narrow luminance band of optimum color discrimination suggests that color discrimination may be better than previously determined using selfruminant spectral lights (von Heiversen 1972a).

Polarization sensitivity of course control inDrosophila melanogaster

InDrosophila polarization sensitivity as revealed in optomotor experiments is mediated by retinula cells R1–6. In the optomotor turning response of the walking fly the response amplitude is a sinusoidal function of E-vector orientation of the stimulus light. For the effect to occur the area of the visual field in which moving vertical stripes are presented must be embedded in an illuminated surround which covers a large part of the visual field. The phase and amplitude of this sinus function do not reflect directly the polarization sensitivity of the photoreceptors mediating it since a) the amplitude is much larger than could be expected from the measured properties of fly retinula cells, b) the effect can be elicited in parts of the visual field viewed by photoreceptors of which half are oriented in mirror symmetry to the other half (equator, frontal area), c) presentation of the stimulus to either eye (at the same height) does not lead to a phase shift in the sinus functions. (A phase shift of 90 ° would be expected in our experiments if the response reflected the fly's bilateral symmetry.) The data suggest that the fly has an “inner” representation of E-vector orientation. In a closed loop situation in which the fly is illuminated from above by linearly polarized light and is allowed to turn the orientation of the E-vector plane relative to its body axis by its yaw torque it can maintain its optomotor balance (i.e. it can fly straight). Often flies keep their longitudinal body axis roughly parallel or perpendicular to the E-vector plane during the whole experiment (4 min). Flies perform discrete 360 °-loops although the rotating polarizing filter has a 180 ° period. Viewed in the context of the first experiment this observation suggests that the fly, like the bee, evaluates the polarization pattern as a whole and designs its loons accordingly. At least on clear daysDrosophila can make use of the polarization pattern of the free sky in flight orientation. Polarization sensitivity is not restricted to the upper part of the eye: Also with the lower part the fly can use a polarization pattern for course control.

On the fine structure of yaw torque in visual flight orientation ofDrosophila melanogaster

On the fine structure of yaw torque in visual flight orientation ofDrosophila melanogaster

A note on ‘stretched attention’, a behavioural element indicative of an approach-avoidance conflict in rats

The behaviour of rats in a passive-avoidance test is described. Following the administration of painful electric footshocks the animals avoid the grid box by displaying overt flight behaviour (walking backwards and walking away) and stretched attention. The latter behaviour is followed either by approach or retreat. During stretched attention auditory stimulation is especially effective in producing flight behaviour. It is concluded that stretched attention is an ambivalent behaviour, indicating a behavioural conflict between exploratory (approach) and flight (avoidance) tendencies. The tension of the body and the absence of locomotion in high intensity stretched attention are taken as indications that, during the conflict, competition for the effectors takes place. The reversal of the orientation of flight evoked by auditory stimuli during stretched attention is best explained by assuming that a competition for the mechanisms of selective attention is also involved.

Orientation of Some Florida Mosquitoes (Diptera: Culicidae) Toward Small Vertebrates and Carbon Dioxide in the Field1

All-night catches in 32 radially arranged ramp traps were compared for evidence of wind-influenced flight orientation and to investigate the range at which various Florida mosquitoes respond to air-borne host stimuli. Culex nigripalpus displayed strong upwind orientation both with and without animal bait, while the flight pattern of Culex pilosus was scarcely influenced by wind direction. Species showing a positive response to the multiple hosts exposed appeared to begin orienting toward the bait about 15 m away and the response increased the nearer they approached, i.e., at 10 and 5 m.

On the fine structure of yaw torque in visual flight orientation ofDrosophila melanogaster

Facing two or more moving objects in stationary flightDrosophila can restrict its torque response to one of them. Under such conditions it evaluates stimuli only in certain parts of the visual field. For the sake of brevity we call this ‘visual attention’. The fly is able to focus its ‘attention’ to any angular position (in the horizontal). In this process it follows the stimuli presented.

Comparative Nesting Behaviors of Crabro rufibasis and Crabro arcadiensis (Hymenoptera: Sphecidae: Crabroninae)

The nesting behaviors of Crabro rufibasis (Banks) and C. arcadiensis Miller, 2 ground-nesting predatory wasps native to Florida, were compared in detail. Among the features examined were nesting habitat, male behavior, nest structure, nest construction, sequence of activities in the nest, daily activity patterns, orientation flights, hunting behavior, prey transport, provisioning and storing times, nest provisions, prey positions, egg placement, larval development, cocoon structure cleptoparasites, seasonal occurrence, and apparent population sizes. Emergence cages placed over completed nests of C. rufibasis of the January-February generation yielded wasp progeny and an unexpectedly large number of cleptoparasitic sarcophagid flies. Direct and circumstantial evidence suggested that C. rufibasis is primarily a winter species in southern Florida and has only a partial second generation in the spring, whereas C. arcadiensis is apparently univoltine in the spring. C. rufibasis and C. arcadiensis were remarkably similar behaviorally but differed partly in seasonal occurrence, choice of nesting sites, and proportions of fly families taken as prey. These apparent behavioral differences may have developed only recently as C. rufibasis moved into areas modified by man for fruit production and ranching. Both Floridian species differ from other known Crabro in having unusually long vertical burrows with nearly all cells within 11 cm of a vertical line through the entrance.

Visual control of orientation behaviour in the fly. Part II. Towards the underlying neural interactions.

Visual information processing in the nervous system of flies begins with a large array of photoreceptors, which transduce a light intensity pattern, and culminates in a behavioural response that depends on that pattern.In the previous paper we have given a quantitative description of visual control of flight orientation in the fly. This description can account for fixation, tracking and some instances of spontaneous pattern preference behaviour. The phenomenological theory outlines the basic logical organization of the visual control system of the fly. It requires the neural network between the receptors and the flight muscles to perform two main computations on the visual input. One computation extractsmovementinformation (the termr(ψ)ψ b of the phenomenological equation). The other provides position information (the termD(ψ)).

Swarming behavior: evidence for communication in social wasps.

Behavior of wasps at sites around swarms and along emigration routes suggests the use of odor marks. Wasps perform breaking runs through swarms, resulting in dispersal of clustered wasps. Orientation in flight of swarm mates to specific trail sites facilitates swarm emigration to the new nest.

Significance of dorsoventral abdominal vibration among honey-bees (Apis mellifera L.).

IN observation hives worker honey-bees may often be seen to perform a behaviour pattern called dorsoventral abdominal vibration (DVAV)1, the jerking dance2, or shaking3. It has been suggested4–6 that it serves to prepare bees for flight, mainly on the grounds that the only occasions on which queen honey-bees are vibrated (subjected to DVAV) are before their orientation and mating flights and before swarming. But conclusive evidence has not been provided, and von Frisch regards the function of DVAV as still being obscure2. Gahl7 also leaves this question open.

A theory of the pattern induced flight orientation of the fly Musca domestica II.

In a preceding paper, Poggio and Reichardt (1973a), a phenomenological theory describing the visual orientation behaviour of fixed flying flies (Musca domestica) towards elementary patterns was presented. Some of the problems raised in this first paper are treated here in more detail. The mapping between the position dependent torque distribution -- D(?) characteristics -- associated with a given pattern and the stationary orientation distribution p(?), is studied taking into account that the fluctuation process (generated by the fly) is coloured gaussian noise. Under certain critical conditions this may lead to an "early symmetry breaking" in the mean values of the p(?) distribution. The validity of the "superposition principle" has also been examined. Although shift and superposition give the main qualitative features of the "attractiveness profile" D(?), associated with a 2-stripe pattern, superposition does not hold quantitatively for stripe separations up to about 80°. Evidence is presented suggesting that such an effect is due to inhibitory interactions between input channels of the fly's eye. Implications of this finding with respect to the problem of spontaneous pattern preference are also discussed.

Collective orientation in night-flying insects

SEVERAL investigations have been made using microwave radar techniques to study individual insects in free flight1–5. One of the most surprising claims to result from these studies is that insects flying at night sometimes adopt a common orientation, usually downwind1,2,4. This would imply a remarkable ability to determine wind direction when flying in conditions of severely limited visibility1. We report here an instance of collective insect orientation in nocturnal flight, although in this case, the direction of flight was against the wind.

Visually induced height orientation of the fly Musca domestica

The visually controlled height orientation of fixed flying flies (Musca domestica) was investigated. The flight lift force measured by a transducer drives the vertical motion of a panorama. The dynamical conditions of the free flight are electronically simulated for the fly with respect to this degree of freedom of motion. In most of the experimentally investigated cases the panorama consists of a horizontally oriented narrow dark stripe on a bright background. The fly orientates with respect to the stripe, transporting it into a stable fixation position just below the equatorial plane of its compound eyes. It is experimentally demonstrated that the formalism of the linearized theory of the pattern induced flight orientation -- Poggio and Reichardt (1973a) -- can be applied to describe the height orientation of the fly. The experimental evidence concerning the simultaneous perception of stripes moving in a well defined manner in front of each of the two compound eyes is consistent with the hypothesis that the two halves of the visual system are perceptually additive.

A theory of the pattern induced flight orientation of the fly Musca domestica.

A theory of the pattern induced flight orientation of the fly Musca domestica.

The Road Test and the unconscious flight orientation (UFO).

Summary The reliability and validity of the Road Test was evaluated, using 330 Ss varying in the number of poorly planned geographic movements (flights). Scoring criteria were developed on an independent sample. Interjudge reliabilities were .81 or above (mean = .92). Groups were differentiated on emotional expression and time span. Males and females differed in emotional expression, philosophical attitude toward life, and personal reference. It was concluded that the Road Test could be of value as a measure of life orientation and emotional expression when used in conjunction with other psychological assessment methods.

Flight orientation in locusts.

Flight orientation in locusts.

Observations on Flight-Experienced Queen Honeybees Following Extra-Apiary Release

SummaryQueen honeybees, which had acquired flight experience during orientation and/or mating flights from small hives, were released at various distances and directions from the apiary. Great variations were found in the return frequency and flight duration of released queens. Of 45 queens released, 12 (27%) mated during their return flights. Of the 35 queens that were liberated within 400 m from the apiary, 32 (91%) returned successfully to their hives; the maximum return distance was 1600 m. Many queens tolerated multiple releases (maximum = 30 return flights for the same queen from 340 m). Queens were able to orient during the morning, although they normally fly only in the afternoon. The method of releasing flight-experienced queens is apparently useful for studying flight; its limitations are discussed.