MANTIS SHRIMPS ARE FAMOUS FOR HAVING UNIQUE VISUAL CAPABILITIES – not only do they have 16 color receptors in their eyes, they can see six types of polarized light properties that are invisible to us human beings.
Presumably, this helps them in a lot of ways, from hunting to avoiding being hunted, possibly for navigation and other uses.
Polarized vision is complicated.
FORTUNATELY:
- University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign engineer Viktor Gruev was inspired to develop a camera that could see like a mantis shrimp.
- Sarah Zang, a staff writer at The Atlantic was inspired to develop an article on his invention, “This Camera Can See the Mantis Shrimp’s Invisible World,” explaining it all.
Dr. Gruev and his colleagues published a report on the project in Science Magazine, which has also posted a video on YouTube.
Ms. Zang notes that polarized vision capabilities are also found in cuttlefishes, octopuses, squids, crabs, and some fishes.