Details of the paper
| Title | A 390 million-year-old hyper-compound eye in Devonian phacopid trilobites [A 390 million-year-old hyper-compound eye in Devonian phacopid trilobites] |
| Year: | 2021 |
| Language: | English |
| Source: | Nature Scientific Reports, 11:19505 |
| Keywords: | Schizochroal eye, phacopid trilobites, Chotecops, Devonian, Hunsrück Slate, fibrous structures, visual unit |
| Summary: | The compound eyes of phacopid trilobites are highly sophisticated systems - hyper-compound eyes hiding an individual compound eye below each of the big lenses. Thus, each of the phacopid compound eyes comprises several tens of small compound eye systems composing a single visual surface. Lehmann (1934) and Stürmer & Bergström (1973) were the first to discover and consider a more or less striated pattern extending from the eye inwards as a light guiding system (soft tissues such as nerves of the visual unit could not be preserved and traced in the fossil record according to the general consensus at that time). Later authors however, among them Bruton & Haas (2003), believed that the striated region did not represent part of the optical system, and explained the fibrous structures as a portion of the gill branch trapped under the eye or as a secondary rock cleavage. Using new techniques, like computer tomography, the authors Schoenemann et al. reinvestigated Stürmer's specimens and other new finds of Chotecops (supplement 2) and concluded, that the striated region contains indeed 'fibers' belonging to the visual unit. However, they are not light guides, but nerves leading to the more proximal neural centre. So, Stürmer's reputation could be restored. This visual system may be an adaptation to dim light conditions, because all subsystems capture light through one large lens. A hyper-compound eye in this form is special and unique in the animal realm. Open acces on nature |
[Home] [Book - Life in Devonian] [Contact]
| Homepage last update: 26.04.2024 © ´2024 Südkamp - Exkursionen | wouter(x)suedkamp-exkursionen.de Impressum Datenschutz |
Webmaster: peter.holze(x)hunsnet.de |