Current Biology
Volume 18, Issue 6, 25 March 2008, Pages 429-434
Journal home page for Current Biology

Report
Circular Polarization Vision in a Stomatopod Crustacean

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2008.02.066Get rights and content
Under an Elsevier user license
open archive

Summary

We describe the addition of a fourth visual modality in the animal kingdom, the perception of circular polarized light. Animals are sensitive to various characteristics of light, such as intensity, color, and linear polarization 1, 2. This latter capability can be used for object identification, contrast enhancement, navigation, and communication through polarizing reflections 2, 3, 4. Circularly polarized reflections from a few animal species have also been known for some time 5, 6. Although optically interesting 7, 8, their signal function or use (if any) was obscure because no visual system was known to detect circularly polarized light. Here, in stomatopod crustaceans, we describe for the first time a visual system capable of detecting and analyzing circularly polarized light. Four lines of evidence—behavior, electrophysiology, optical anatomy, and details of signal design—are presented to describe this new visual function. We suggest that this remarkable ability mediates sexual signaling and mate choice, although other potential functions of circular polarization vision, such as enhanced contrast in turbid environments, are also possible 7, 8. The ability to differentiate the handedness of circularly polarized light, a visual feat never expected in the animal kingdom, is demonstrated behaviorally here for the first time.

SYSNEURO

Cited by (0)

4

These authors contributed equally to this work.

5

Present address: Max-Planck-Institut für Biophysik, Max-von-Laue-Strasse 3, D-60438 Frankfurt/M, Germany.

6

Present address: University of Applied Sciences Bremen, Dept. for Biomimetics, Neustadtswall 30, 28199 Bremen, Germany.