by *Blepharopsis
"Projection of confocal microscope optical sections showing three out of eight (but you may flip it along the vertical axis and you end up having six - 75% success rate!) eyes of a jumping spider.
It's funny how the eyes of the spider remind rather those of vertebrates than insects - they are simple, as opposite to compound, have single large lens and a retina.
The two big Anterior Median eyes in the middle are long and tubular and hence have longer focal length, something akin to a telephoto lens, but which means they have a narrow field of view.
The narrow field of view means that the spider has to move its body to see in different directions, however, the eyes can move as well - or rather the retina, since the eyes are build in the carapace. You can see the retina, composed of 4 layers of tiny sensory cells, in the middle of the image. The muscles thatt accoplish its movement are visible below the lens as two bright blue tripes.
Nuclei - red (also, autofluorescence of the lenses' "coating")
Actin - blue"
Click on image to enlarge
In celebration of National Eye Health Week we at Ultralase have immersed ourselves in the world of vision in order to produce this handy graphic containing facts and tips to help encourage you, and the rest of the world to Love Your Eyes
