Sense Organs: Vision

Spectral efficiency of the glasshouse whitefly Trialeurodes vaporariorum and Encarsia formosa its hymenopteran parasitoid

“…In some insects, such as the bumblebee Bombus lucorum (Burkhardt, 1983) and the swallowtail butterfly Papilo xuthus (Arikawa et al, 1987), the ventral region of the eye possesses the greater ultraviolet sensitivity which is related to the detection of nectar or 'honey guides' which are present on the flowers of many species of plants (Wigglesworth, 1972;Barth, 1985). In some insects, such as the bumblebee Bombus lucorum (Burkhardt, 1983) and the swallowtail butterfly Papilo xuthus (Arikawa et al, 1987), the ventral region of the eye possesses the greater ultraviolet sensitivity which is related to the detection of nectar or 'honey guides' which are present on the flowers of many species of plants (Wigglesworth, 1972;Barth, 1985).…”

“…Differences in the spectral responses in insect compound eyes tend to occur in two forms depending on the relative sizes of the ultraviolet and blue-green sensitivity peaks. In some insects, such as the bumblebee Bombus lucorum (Burkhardt, 1983) and the swallowtail butterfly Papilo xuthus (Arikawa et al, 1987), the ventral region of the eye possesses the greater ultraviolet sensitivity which is related to the detection of nectar or 'honey guides' which are present on the flowers of many species of plants (Wigglesworth, 1972;Barth, 1985). In other insects the dorsal region has the greater sensitivity to ultraviolet light, for example, in the cockroach Periplaneta americana (Walther & Dodt, 1959), the neuropteran, Ascalaphus macaronius (Gogala, 1967), the marchfly, Bibio marci (Burkhardt, 1983) and the mosquito Aedes aegypti (Muir et al, 1992).…”