The Japanese yellow swallowtail butterfly, Papilio xuthus, is one of the first butterfly species in which the spectral organization of the eye was characterized in detail. Their eyes are furnished with six classes of spectral receptors: UV, violet, blue, green, red and broad‐band (Fig. 1 B-D).
Butterfly vision differs significantly from human vision in several ways. Human eyes have a single lens, while a butterfly's compound eyes are made of thousands of tiny lenses, forming a mosaic image. Humans possess three types of cone cells for color perception, enabling trichromatic vision of red, green, and blue light.
Interestingly, in some species, make and female butterflies have different color receptor cells. For example, in the case of the Small White Butterfly (Pieris rapae), only females have photoreceptors for the color violet. Instead of the violet, it appears that males see an extra shade of blue, as they have two types of photoreceptors for blue.
Each of their eyes, scientists report in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, contains at least 15 different types of photoreceptors, the light. Butterfly Eye Structure Butterfly eyes are complex organs that are specially adapted for sensing color. They are composed of thousands of tiny lenses called ommatidia, each containing a cluster of light-sensitive photoreceptor cells.
There are two main types of photoreceptors: Rods. These eyes are also used for sensing ultraviolet color and polarized light. butterfly compound eye diagram Butterfly Ultraviolet Vision Butterflies compound eyes are stained to see light wavelengths from 254 to 600 nm, this range includes ultraviolet light which humans are unable to see, as our vision extends from 450 to 700 nm.
The Japanese yellow swallowtail butterfly, for example, has ultraviolet, violet, blue, green, red, and broad-band receptors in its eyes. This incredible color vision is made possible by the random arrangement of three ommatidial types, which house the photoreceptor cells, in butterfly eyes. Butterflies are not just masters of metamorphosis and aerial acrobatics-they're also visual virtuosos with extraordinary color perception capabilities that surpass our own human vision.
While humans perceive the world through three types of color receptors, certain butterfly species possess up to fifteen different photoreceptors, allowing them to see colors we can't even imagine. This. Butterfly eyes are unique and function differently compared to the human eye.
Although butterflies may not have a human's sharp eye, there vision beats ours in other ways! The different colours and patterns that butterflies can see are invisible to the human eye. This is because their eyes are better at picking up fast moving objects and they can distinguish ultraviolet and polarised light. Butterfly eyes are random mosaics built of three ommatidia types, each with a different set of photoreceptors and pigments.
What defines the combined.