ReviewPhilosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences2017
The remarkable visual capacities of nocturnal insects: vision at the limits with small eyes and tiny brains.
Review in Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 30 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
30 citing papers in PubMed.
- Insect phototransduction: illuminating pathways to precision Pest management.Pest management science · 2026Review
- Lightweight Low-Light Enhancement Network with Multi-Bio-Inspired Visual Mechanisms.Biomimetics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Flight in the dark: different responses to darkness in flying insects.The Journal of experimental biology · 2026Article
- The visual system of a nocturnal long-distance migrant, the Australian Bogong moth.Journal of comparative physiology. A, Neuroethology, sensory, neural, and behavioral physiology · 2026Article
- Review
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- Article
- Bioluminescence and environmental light drive the visual evolution of deep-sea shrimp (Oplophoroidea).Communications biology · 2025Article
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- A Deep Learning Biomimetic Milky Way Compass.Biomimetics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Computer Vision Techniques Demonstrate Robust Orientation Measurement of the Milky Way Despite Image Motion.Biomimetics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Synchrotron-source micro-x-ray computed tomography for examining butterfly eyes.Ecology and evolution · 2024Article
- Multiple axes of visual system diversity in Ithomiini, an ecologically diverse tribe of mimetic butterflies.The Journal of experimental biology · 2023Article
- Assessing the Welfare of Captive Group-Housed Cockroaches,Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2023Article
- Colour vision in nocturnal insects.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2022Review
- Humans influence shrimp movement: a conservation behavior case study with "Shrimp Watching" ecotourism.Current zoology · 2022Article
- Fiddler crab electroretinograms reveal vast circadian shifts in visual sensitivity and temporal summation in dim light.The Journal of experimental biology · 2022Article
- Article
- Mathematical study of neural feedback roles in small target motion detection.Frontiers in neurorobotics · 2022Article
- Pervasiveness of Biological Impacts of Artificial Light at Night.Integrative and comparative biology · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
1 author.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Nocturnal insects have evolved remarkable visual capacities, despite small eyes and tiny brains. They can see colour, control flight and land, react to faint movements in their environment, navigate using dim celestial cues and find their way home after a long and tortuous foraging trip using learned visual landmarks. These impressive visual abilities occur at light levels when only a trickle of photons are being absorbed by each photoreceptor, begging the question of how the visual system nonetheless generates the reliable signals needed to steer behaviour. In this review, I attempt to provide an answer to this question. Part of the answer lies in their compound eyes, which maximize light capture. Part lies in the slow responses and high gains of their photoreceptors, which improve the reliability of visual signals. And a very large part lies in the spatial and temporal summation of these signals in the optic lobe, a strategy that substantially enhances contrast sensitivity in dim light and allows nocturnal insects to see a brighter world, albeit a slower and coarser one. What is abundantly clear, however, is that during their evolution insects have overcome several serious potential visual limitations, endowing them with truly extraordinary night vision.This article is part of the themed issue 'Vision in dim light'.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.