Abstract
The compound eyes of mantis shrimps, a group of tropical marine crustaceans,
incorporate principles of serial and parallel processing of visual
information that may be applicable to artificial imaging systems.
Their eyes include numerous specializations for analysis of the spectral
and polarizational properties of light, and include more photoreceptor
classes for analysis of ultraviolet light, color, and polarization
than occur in any other known visual system. This is possible because
receptors in different regions of the eye are anatomically diverse
and incorporate unusual structural features, such as spectral filters,
not seen in other compound eyes. Unlike eyes of most other animals,
eyes of mantis shrimps must move to acquire some types of visual
information and to integrate color and polarization with spatial
vision. Information leaving the retina appears to be processed into
numerous parallel data streams leading into the central nervous system,
greatly reducing the analytical requirements at higher levels. Many
of these unusual features of mantis shrimp vision may inspire new
sensor designs for machine vision.
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